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Policies in development

January 2008

translations between FLs of non-English phrases

There are a number of phrases that exist in translation among various foreign languages, but not (idiomatically) in English. For example, in Hebrew, a phrase meaning "you're welcome" is על לא דבר, literally "for nothing"; likewise, in French (from what I understand, not knowing French), there's ne rien, literally "nothing", for "you're welcome". In English, there's no real idiomatic counterpart to these: we say "oh, it's nothing", but that's not a set phrase, and rightfully is redlinked. Yet we (meaning I) would want a way to note that the French phrase and the Hebrew phrase are near-exact translations of one another. (Right now, we only have that they're both translations of "you're welcome". One can look up the individual words comprising the FL phrases and realize that they match up, but that's convoluted.) I suggest therefore that idioms such as these have Translations sections which will list only translations into other FLs which carry similar idiomatic meaning and are also near-exact literal translations — and only where English has no such idiom. (This would of course require a change to ELE and, so, a vote; right now, it's just an idea for discussion.)—msh210℠ 19:35, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's an interesting thought. Personally, I'd tend to put that sort of information in an etymology section ('Literally “on not a thing”; compare French (deprecated template usage) de rien, which literally means “of nothing”.') — but that's partly because I only include that sort of information when I think it might have etymological significance (since so many idioms have been borrowed by and from Hebrew), and partly because I don't know enough languages that I might fear overfilling the etymology section. :-P Another useful exception to the no-FL-translations rule would be the case where multiple foreign languages have words for a concept without a CFI-meeting English-language entry, like Hebrew (deprecated template usage) מחרתיים (mokhr'táyim) and French (deprecated template usage) après-demain. —Ruakh_TALK 03:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could this be adequately be handled with sufficient coordination with FL wiktionaries? Or possibly non-NS:0 pages such as Appendix pages? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We haven't had the "cognate" discussion in a while; adding it as a heading met significant resistance in the past. (Some might say my objections were militant - perhaps so.) The addition of a "translations" section to a FL entry is still very strongly discouraged; there is no reasonable way that information can be verified here (whereas it can be verified on the FL wikt.) And making exceptions for only certain entries that have certain properties in some FLs is too precarious, to set a rule (only for certain exceptions) for. --Connel MacKenzie 22:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. It can be hard to bring newbies up to speed with even our most consistent policies; I won't be the one calling for open mayhem. :-P —Ruakh_TALK 04:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Abbreviation" L3 header

The standard, the way I understand it, is that we do not use the Phrase POS header when another does better; for example, if a phrase is a verb, then we list it as a Verb, not as a Phrase. I assume (though I haven't seen anyone say this) that the logic is as follows: It's obviously a phrase (count the number of words, and see that there's more than one), so use the Verb header to show that it's also a verb (which is not as obvious).

The same would seem to apply to Abbreviation. If something is an abbreviation, but also a noun, then we should list it as a Noun, and put {{abbreviation of}}, or something similar, in its definition line (or in its Etymology). That abbreviation info will suffice for people to know it's an abbreviation; and the Noun POS header will give the non-obvious info that readers need: this is almost completely analogous to the phrase case.

This is the way I've been doing it, and it seems the most reasonable way to me. Someone called me on it, though, so I seek public opinion.—msh210℠ 23:16, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's not the way I do it. Rather, I would use ===Abbreviation=== and mark the part of speech at the head of the "definition" line as (noun) or whatever. An abbreviation is automatically not truly a lemma, since it is an abbreviation of something else. The something else will be marked for POS. I have done c. this way as an example. Also see WT:POS. --EncycloPetey 23:22, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A minor point, but we should then have context templates, à la {{pos-n}}, for every part of speech. Right now I only see {{pos-a}} (adjectives), {{pos-vi}}, and {{pos-vt}}. In English alone we'll need a whole bunch more.—msh210℠ 23:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That point has been raised in previous incarnations of this discussion, and I agree with you. --EncycloPetey 23:34, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I like the layout of c. it lets the Abbreviation header be used for what is clearly an abbreviation, and also allows for the grammatical information to be present for those who wish it to be there. Conrad.Irwin 00:55, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed vote on fiction concordances.

Pursuant to the discussion on Harry Potter above, and the RfV on "drider", I plan to call a policy vote on fictional words (other than proper nouns) that do meet the CFI but only within the context of a specific fictional universe, or discussions of that universe. Specifically, I intend to propose that all such words be banned from the main entry space, and instead included (if at all) in a universe-specific concordance along the lines of Concordance:A Clockwork Orange. If anyone has anything to say about this in advance of a vote, speak now or forever rest in peace. bd2412 T 03:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Concordance:A Clockwork Orange doesn't correspond to any definition of concordance with which I'm familiar. Granted, the Concordance: space is miserably underused, but I'd prefer if we can limit it to actual concordances... I would suggest "Appendix: Glossary of Foo terms" as an alternative convention, with option to create subpages ("Appendix:Glossary of Foo terms/Bar") for individual terms where warranted. -- Visviva 04:48, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like there are actually two Clockwork Orange word lists: Concordance:A Clockwork Orange and Concordance:Nadsat lexicon. Mike Dillon 05:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Most of our 'Concordances' (all?) are linked word lists, with no information about context, frequence, citations, or location. The concordances to Shakespeare and the Sherlock Holmes stories are particularly notorious. However, those are complete word lists, with all words that appear in those works. To propose a Concordance, I would want to see a word list that is likewise comprehensive. So, I agree with Visviva that the proposal sounds more like an Appendix than a Concordance. --EncycloPetey 04:53, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree that Appendix space would be better given the rather narrow definition of concordance - the Clockwork Orange page should be moved to an appendix, actually. My point is to get these things out of mainspace and still have a place to warehouse them, to avoid disputes erupting over muggles and corbomite and banthas. bd2412 T 05:45, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why these shouldn't be included as long as the citations are truly independent. I could see eliminating protocol droid on the grounds that they all refer to the same character, but that's a proper entity and easy to identify. "Fictional universe" does not necessarily imply a unique concept in that way; please elaborate on how specific it should be. DAVilla 07:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with keeping words where the citations are independent - but is a peer-reviewed study of a fictional character, for example, "independent"? For example:

2003: Angela Jane Weisl, The Persistence of Medievalism: Narrative Adventures in Contemporary Culture, p. 200:
The battle is described in the script: Luke ignites his lightsaber and screams in anger, rushing at his father with a frenzy we have not seen before.

The above citation is not independent of the Star Wars universe even though it is not occuring within that universe. Compare:

2004: Les Pardew, Game Design for Teens, p. 71:
With some of the modifications [to the World War II battlefied game, 1942], you can even play with a lightsaber, thus showing how one idea can branch into many others.
2006: Maddy B., The Haunter of the Loch, p. 41:
[After finding a glowing blade,] Brian being Brian, his first thought was of a lightsaber.

These latter two citations make no reference to Star Wars; they simply presume that the characteristics of a lightsaber are known to the reader. bd2412 T 14:19, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your wording in the proposal addresses my concern. DAVilla 15:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hearing no further objection, here it is: Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2008-01/Appendices for fictional terms. Cheers! bd2412 T 02:35, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am very in support of this, but I feel that there should be a way of linking from dictionary entries that both exist (in particular), and do not otherwise exist, to the correct Appendix, this would allow these to be found by those looking them up - to have the information is all very well, but it would be even better if the newbies can find it.

If the word otherwise exists, use this with the {see} template.

For the use of firebolt in relation to the Harry Potter universe, see our Harry Potter appendix

If the word doesn't otherwise exist

firebolt is a word invented for the Harry Potter series, for its definition see Harry Potter appendix.

Feel free to create an entry below for other uses of this word

Would this be sensible, useful or acceptable. Would perhaps a transcludable {{Wiktionary:Project-Noarticletext}} with a space for a link to the appendix be better in the case in which the page doesn't exist. Conrad.Irwin 17:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Quite frankly, I think that is a problem for the search engine tweakers to figure out. If you look up the word and it's not in the dictionary proper, an appendix which actually contains it should be the first thing to come up. bd2412 T 20:21, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why we can not permit the "non-lemma" format to be considered standard

Because it gives users license to remove content.

See this edit and this one, note that the IP-anon added Usage notes to replace the definition that EP deleted.

In particular, it is sad and painful to watch Ric converting all of his excellent work to the dumbed-down stub format, especially when it will all have to be re-done eventually by someone. (At least they can refer to the history, perhaps "undo"? Would need to restore the templates.)

These are stubs. They are a fill-in for a proper entry; they are useful and many may remain this way; but a proper full WT:ELE form entry must never be replaced by a stub. The stub is not the desired form.

This removal of content is utterly, totally wrong. Robert Ullmann 15:02, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting to see this POV at work. What definition did I delete? None. The anon removed the definition when he made this edit, thereby converting the defintion into a redirect. I informed the anon that a redirect would be inappropriate, and after some going back and forth, we ended up with the current entry for lietuvių that identifies the form, points to the lemma, and provides Usage notes.

In other words, what actually happened was that the anon thought having a separate, duplicate version of the lemma definition on the inflected form was inappropriate and misleading, and wanted to point instead to the lemma form. So, educated anons agree that having the non-lemma simply duplicate the lemma is wrong. In this case particularly so, since the original definition "Lithuanian" is wrong. The word lietuvių does not translate as "Lithuanian" except when it is used to mean the language, which is not what the lemma means. The word lietuvių means "of (the) Lithuanians".

Net result: content was added, not removed. --EncycloPetey 17:46, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For my clarification, would a good (though a bit minimal) non-lemma article (for the lemma/non-lemma distinguishing camp) be habla? It lists each grammatical inflection on a seperate definition line and gives example usage and translation. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 21:55, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a start, but the Related terms section is not formatted correctly. It should either be at L4 under Noun, or placed following the Verb section at L3. Also, I would want to see a pronunciation and quotations added, at a minimum. I've made a couple of changes. --EncycloPetey 22:06, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

EncycloPetey, I don't see the original complaint as attacking you, if perhaps you do. The point is that encouraging "lemma mentality" is simply wrong. It leads to mis-perceptions like that anon's initial edit. --Connel MacKenzie 22:15, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would argue that the anon's initial edit was caused by Wikipedia's "redirect mentality", not by lemmatic thinking. Have you looked at the page for (deprecated template usage) habla? Do you really think it would be better to eliminate all the verb content and replace it with an exact duplicate of what appears on the page for (deprecated template usage) hablar, instead of having this form-specific content? To make that change would be a loss of information, which is actually what would be wrong. Lemmata have been used for centuries, and having a few people calling them "wrong" doesn't make it so. --EncycloPetey 22:29, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is not what is being proposed (anymore ;) what would be better is to have an entry, as informative as the "lemma" but for this particular inflected form. In order to do this properly, in a way that will work, we need to have an entry format flexible enough that "definitions" are not required. As has been said before, the "dis-inflection" of a word can be more important, more precise, and more useful that the definition. The reason that this format works for habla is because there is only one sense of the verb hablar. It wouldn't work for ran as there are multiple senses of run. The other thing that confuses me about this entry is why hablar is listed as a related term. It would also be possible to add the conjugation table from hablar to this entry with no ill effects. Conrad.Irwin 22:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the RAE lists 20 senses for (deprecated template usage) hablar, we just don't have the other 18 yet. --EncycloPetey 23:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and adding inflection tables presents a new problem as well, since a large proportion of the inflection table tempates rely on the PAGENAME to generate the inflection. Including inflections in non-lemmata would require first re-writing most of the current inflection table templates. --EncycloPetey 23:03, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In which case the format at habla will not work at all and we need to find a better one. Perhaps by expanding the sentences to include some context would alleviate the issue, adding a gloss, or even removing them all together, but that would be a shame. Perhaps it would be best to put example sentences under usage notes in the cases that they are useful - though this would be messier. I doubt that many of the conjugation tables do use {PAGENAME} as it is unusual (in everything I have seen) to have the lemma form as a stem, this would in any case not be a long term issue at all. Conrad.Irwin 01:28, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The verb conjugation templates don't use {PAGENAME} but the adjective/noun inflection templates do. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 13:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But even in those cases, surely it is trivial to replace {{{PAGENAME}}} with {{{lemma|{{{PAGENAME}}}}}} (or what have you), so that the same table can be generated on an arbitrary page? -- Visviva 17:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bad content should be removed. We already remove lots of content that's bad, whether because it's inaccurate, or not neutral, or not verifiable, or not definitional, or in the wrong place, or simply because we don't want it (as with many brand names — a dictionary could include them, but we don't want to be a haven for spammers). In the case of non-lemma entries, "in the wrong place" is the relevant factor. —Ruakh_TALK 00:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Robert, I've "dumbed down" my old stuff because after doing it long enough, I realized how messy it is to do things "your way". In particular with verbs. Of course I always have trouble thinking of specific examples, but the verb pleca comes right away. We don't have an entry for it yet, but it has two definitions. The first is "to leave". It's intransitive and works by itself. However, the other definition is "to vow". This is reflexive and would be written "a se pleca". Trying to format pleci would be a nightmare for me. If I only put in the definition for "pleci", you leave, it wouldn't be complete. But the definition for "te pleci" would have to go under another verb header, because you need to have the 'te' in there or it wouldn't be the same. uita is the same. Intransitively it means "to forget". Reflexively it means "to look at." So should we have separate entries for "pleci" (you leave) and "te pleci" (you vow), "uit" (I forget) and "mă uit" (I look at)? If you use one entry you'd have to point out the difference, but how? Look at User:Opiaterein/uit and try to tell me that's a good way to do it, especially when the subjunctive ONLY means "should" when it isn't used with other stuff. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 18:19, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Concering User:Opiaterein/uit, look at how the definitions (which are good) don't match the example sentences. If you say "să mă uit" alone, it doesn't mean the same as if you added "vreau" to the front of the sentence. So if someone was trying to figure out what "să mă uit" means, because they saw it somewhere, without that example sentence they would think that "vreau să mă uit" means "I want I should look". So with the definition and the example sentence not matching, that just creates confusion. Better to have the form of information and then an example sentence. (I myself am lazy with example sentences, but I do try to throw them in once in a while, if I feel that they're needed.) — [ ric ] opiaterein — 18:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a good way of doing it at all. For cases such as that adding definitions makes the entry more complicated, however the example sentences do help. I have taken the liberty of making it look slightly tidier, though I am not sure my version is the best either. Is the non-reflexive sense also part of uita or is it actually from a different lemma? Conrad.Irwin 19:19, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the dictionary you would find it under "uita, a" rather than "uita, a se". So it would come within the section describing "uita, a". The thing I don't like about your formatting is that it wouldn't be the same between entries. Standardization is the key, otherwise newbie people won't know what to do. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 19:28, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, with all that information on the head line without a # underneath looks strange. Also, most Romance languages have third-person singular present and second-person singular imperative forms that are they same. If you put that all on one head line, it'd be really long and clumsy. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 19:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As per discussion (a long way) above, often the definitions confuse the issue rather than help to sort them out, therefore we need a format that is happy without definitions, but encourage the addition of them when necessary. I agree that all the inflection information wont always fit in one line, in which case two of more could be added. I also agree that having no # line looks strange, but that is only because we are not used to it yet. Conrad.Irwin 19:47, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We need a format that works for all form-of entries, which is what we have. It is still completely possible to add definitions if they're necessary. It is more than completely possible to add example sentences if they're necessary. There's nothing wrong with the current format. See veştejiţi. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 19:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. Conrad, multiple inflection lines under a single POS cause a host of added complications. When those happen on a lemma page, it means that there are two forms that have different genders, and possibly even different inflections. But, you can't add the inflection section underneath each one, since that is a separate section, and therefore can't be inserted between them without violating the page structure. Expanding this problem to non-lemma pages would not be a good idea. (And I would rather see it not happen on the lemma pages, but people are resistant to Noun 1, Noun2, etc., so we're stuck with the problem for now) --EncycloPetey 04:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure what you are saying, EncycloPetey, how would you markup the cases, such as User:Opiaterein/uit, where multiple inflection forms of the same word are present. To split that =Verb 1= =Verb 2= etc. would be wrong, as they are all the same verb. Conrad.Irwin 23:16, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some words have more than one declension. There are a few words in Romanian that have two meanings, and a plural for each. (an example would be vise and visuri, plurals of vis, but they mean the same thing. I can't think of any immediately with different plurals with different meanings.) Also, some form-of words are forms of different words. capete is the plural of cap and capăt. I don't do =POS1 = and =POS2=, I just repeat it twice. ===Noun=== ===Noun===, don't see anything wrong with it, really. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 01:52, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just repeating the heading is worse. Those are supposed to be broken out in the "multiple etymology" format, as per ELE, even if that means that the separate etymologies only indicate the difference by gender (more likely, there is a more difference than just gender.) Note that when your entry is parsed (whether by Conrad's fancy parser for the different "skin" views here, or ninjawords, or my offline parser, or Robert's, or Hippietrail's, or Patrick Stridvall's) either the first =Noun= section or the second =Noun= section is simply discarded. The only possible reasons for intentionally being so nonstandard, would be to prevent reuse, or to "break" the alternate page views. I don't see anything in your examples that needs to be hidden, so I'm left wondering why you'd intentionally want such things not to show up. --Connel MacKenzie 17:43, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I would do if the etymologies were actually different, which is something I have seen, but haven't added yet. At least I'm pretty sure I haven't. Anyway, I'm not sure what you mean by the rest of your message, so I guess I'll leave this at... that. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 23:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

template:smarter

Move to WT:RFDO --Williamsayers79 10:11, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Declension templates, opinion gathering

Look in here

declension of Beer parlour

case \ number	singular	plural
nominative	{{{1}}}ά •	{{{1}}}ές •
genitive	{{{1}}}άς •	{{{1}}}ών •
accusative	{{{1}}}ά •	{{{1}}}ές •
vocative	{{{1}}}ά •	{{{1}}}ές •

Template:fi-decl-40

Declension of Beer parlour
f15	singular		plural
f15	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative	{{{1}}}{{{2}}}{{{3}}}	{{{1}}}{{{2}}}{{{3}}}in	{{{1}}}{{{4}}}{{{3}}}	{{{1}}}{{{4}}}{{{3}}}inar
accusative	{{{1}}}{{{2}}}{{{3}}}	{{{1}}}{{{2}}}{{{3}}}ina	{{{1}}}{{{4}}}{{{3}}}	{{{1}}}{{{4}}}{{{3}}}inar
dative	{{{1}}}{{{2}}}{{{3}}}	{{{1}}}{{{2}}}{{{3}}}ini	{{{1}}}{{{2}}}{{{3}}}um	{{{1}}}{{{2}}}{{{3}}}unum
genitive	{{{1}}}{{{5}}}{{{3}}}ar	{{{1}}}{{{5}}}{{{3}}}arinnar	{{{1}}}{{{5}}}{{{3}}}a	{{{1}}}{{{5}}}{{{3}}}anna

Template:de-decl-noun

Template:hr-decl-noun-a-in-f

Template:grc-adecl-1&2-alp-prp

Template:is-decl-noun

Template:lv-noun-d1

Template:la-decl-1st

Template:sv-noun-n-zero

Declension of Beer parlour

	singular (tekil)	plural (çoğul)
nominative (yalın)	{{{1}}}	{{{2}}}
definite accusative (belirtme)	{{{3}}}	{{{4}}}
dative (yönelme)	{{{5}}}	{{{6}}}
locative (bulunma)	{{{7}}}	{{{8}}}
ablative (ayrılma)	{{{9}}}	{{{10}}}
genitive (tamlayan)	{{{11}}}	{{{12}}}

Declension of Beer parlour

	singular		plural
	indefinite articulation	definite articulation	indefinite articulation	definite articulation
nominative/accusative	—	—	—	—
genitive/dative	—	—	—	—
vocative	—		—

`{{el-nF-α-ες-1}}`	`{{fi-decl-40}}`	`{{fo-decl-noun-f15}}`
`{{de-decl-noun}}`	`{{hr-decl-noun-a-in-f}}`	`{{grc-adecl-1&2-alp-prp}}`
`{{is-decl-noun}}`	`{{lv-noun-d1}}`	`{{la-decl-1st}}`
`{{sv-noun-n-zero}}`	`{{tr-decl-noun}}`	`{{ro-decl-noun}}`
`{{ru-noun1}}`	`{{crh-latin-noun}}`	`{{he-prep-inflection}}`
`{{ar-prep-inflection}}`	Template:ru-noun1

Any thoughts about this ugly mish mash of templates? I would like to try and make them all look more similar, though I appreciate that would take a very long time, and will almost certainly lead to arguments as to which ones are nicer. A lot of them are perfectly acceptable on their own, but when you see two or more on a page it can begin to look ugly and unprofessional. My preferred format would be something like the {{is-decl-noun}} with a [show] link in the heading. What do other people think? This is a minor issue compared to the much bigger ones of grammar versus meaning being discussed in other places, so a bit of light relief :) Conrad.Irwin 19:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not as worried about them looking different as some of them being downright ugly. :( But the height of some of the right-side-float ones can also be an issue. I'd rather all declension and conjugation templates go under a ====Declension==== header than float to the right. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 19:56, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An then there's {{fr-infl-noun}}, which conflate it with a entry-top template (or however it's called), and the conjugation templates...

Seems like it would be best if we had a CSS class for all tables of this sort; hardly anyone seems to use the standard wikitable class for declensions and inflections, so we do definitely need something here. The show/hide issue can probably be decided case-by-case, although I think in most cases you're right that it should be hidden. -- Visviva 01:26, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We should impose some basics, at least - layout (where the cases go relative to each other, and relative to categories such as gender and number); color schemes, font styles. bd2412 T 02:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer that different languages have different looks and styles for their templates, since it makes it much easier to know when you've found the language section you're looking for. The language headers are supposed to do that, but on a crowded page, they're not immediately visible. The various templates thus serve a function in being different. That's not to say that some standardization would be bad, in fact I'd like to see some. Personally, I dislike collapsible templates, except for verb templates and similarly long templates that drown out the other information. Many users coming here do not realize the tables are collapsed. Several times this week, I have had to help people who didn't understand what was going on with collapsible tables, so I'd rather not propogate them to places they don't need to be used. Translations tables, yes, because they grow long. Lengthy Related terms and Derived terms lists likewise. But for some languages and parts of speech, the inflection tables are short. Adding the complexity of collapsing them would, I think, be a net loss. And for highly inflected langugaes like Latin, I tink it would be downright detrimental.

As far as what BD2412 says, I agree mostly. There are standard ways that grammarians lay out inflection tables, and we should follow that as much as we can. However, some specific languages (and their textbooks) do things differently, and we should consider that as well. Color schemes, as I noted above, ought to be allowed to vary. I think the different colors are a plus (though we might work to simplify the vast array we currently have). --EncycloPetey 04:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Further thoughts: I would like each template to have a "Declension of lemma" or similar heading, perhaps linking 'Declension' to an appendix where the language's grammar is described, in addition to linking to the lemma. In terms of style I would like to see each one having a surrounding border and a solid background - perhaps all the light grey that is used in several templates above. Conrad.Irwin 16:29, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Two quick thoughts: (1) declension only applies to nouns and adjectives (and pronouns); the general term is inflection; the term for verbs is conjugation. (2) This isn't always necessary, since Latin has this information in the inflection line. For most other languages, no appendix exists explaining the grammar. I've pushed for these appendices many times, but they just haven't been written, so there wouldn't be any place for them to link to, in the vast majority of languages. --EncycloPetey 16:34, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The conjugation tables are all fairly good at the moment (and all pretty much the same), which is why I brought up the declension templates. Obviously if the appendix doesn't exist or there is another link, then there is no point in linking to it. The reason I didn't want to use the word inflection is that it has become incorrigibly confused, on Wiktionary, with the "inflection line." Conrad.Irwin 17:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, red-linking the Appendix page that should exist is a good way to encourage its creation (in the correct place, no less.) --Connel MacKenzie 16:43, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is more important to have consistent headings, position and layout. If pushed I would say further that the detailed table design should be similar - if there must be differences between languages, let it just be the use of different colorways. —Saltmarsh^Talk 06:43, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Though not really normalization, we should make sure they are understandable by the color blind. We could adopt w:Wikipedia:Colour (or parts of w:Wikipedia:Manual of Style) and use the online tools to test if they work. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:17, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Postpositional pronomial forms

What is the correct header for Hungarian postpositional pronomial forms? Please see mögött (behind), the actual postposition, and mögöttem (behind me), one of its inflected forms. --Panda10 12:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure we've had to deal with this situation before. I suppoose you could call it a Postposition form, just as we have noun forms and verb forms, but I'm not sure that would really capture its grammar. Note that this would mean the POS header would still be "Postposition"; only the category name would be different. --EncycloPetey 15:37, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for creating the new category. --Panda10 19:30, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually Spanish has a small closed set of words like this: conmigo, contigo, consigo. I think I've seen at least one in Italian too. In Hebrew all prepositions are inflected by the addittion of personal pronoun clitics. Hungarian only has a couple of postpositions though doesn't it? — Hippietrail 21:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, Hungarian has many postpositions; Hungarian uses them instead of prepositions. There are quite a lot of them. The examples you're giving from Spanish are Contractions of a preposition and pronoun, and they function as adverbs. I'm away from my books right now, so I can't remember whether the Hungarian forms are appending the pronoun to the postposition, or appending an associated pronomial ending. --EncycloPetey 23:29, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Spanish: Not necessarily as adverbs; in general, *(deprecated template usage) con mí → (deprecated template usage) conmigo, *(deprecated template usage) con ti → (deprecated template usage) contigo, and *(deprecated template usage) con si → (deprecated template usage) consigo, such that we have, for example, "el problema conmigo". Re: Hungarian: A pronominal ending, that vary somewhat from preposition to preposition, if you believe Wikipedia. (See wikipedia:Hungarian grammar (noun phrases)#Postpositions with personal suffixes.) —Ruakh_TALK 00:11, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My Italian Babel is holding steady at 0, but I believe it has (deprecated template usage) meco, (deprecated template usage) teco, and (deprecated template usage) seco, cognate with the latter two syllables of each of your Spanish examples, respectively. (The Spanish forms are inherently redundant, in that the (deprecated template usage) con- and (deprecated template usage) -go both descend from Latin (deprecated template usage) cum.) —Ruakh_TALK 21:50, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A fair number of languages have something like this, including Hebrew and Arabic (although these are prepositional, not postpositional). For instance, Hebrew אל or Arabic Template:Arab. —Stephen 00:49, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reverting

Whilst assembling the Help:Index I have come across an anomaly: our Help:Reverting points to Help:Reverting on meta-wiki, which refers to the Three-revert rule on Wikipedia - yet our page Wiktionary:Three-revert rule is indicated to be a rejected policy. What is the newbie to make of this? —Saltmarsh^Talk 07:02, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of the help pages are in need of a rewrite to make them useful for wiktionary, which is often very different from "standard" wikimedia/mediawiki. I believe that Wiktionary:Three-revert rule is correct, and so it is not a policy, or even a guideline on Wiktionary - the very few cases where there have been revert wars on Wiktionary have presumably resolved themselves by other means. Conrad.Irwin 11:19, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

meme

An anonymous user (User:68.60.42.209) claimed in April last year that "meme" is pronounced /mEm/ (rhyming with "them") in US English and /mi:m/ (rhyming with "theme") in UK English, updating meme and the corresponding rhymes pages. Both Wikipedia and dictionary.com give /mi:m/ only. The page for meme was rolled back, but not the rhymes pages. Presumably the user was mistaken, but can someone (preferably a US English-speaker) confirm this? I note that User:Hamaryns added "(UK)" to the rhymes page for -i:m, so it is possible that Hamaryns is also the anonymous user. — Paul G 08:49, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I rhyme it with "theme", but with Internetisms it's always possible there's variation, as different people try to figure out how to pronounce what they're reading. :-P ("Meme" isn't originally an Internetism, but I think most people know it as one.) —Ruakh_TALK 14:32, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think Richard Dawkin's intention, when he coined the word, was for it to rhyme with gene as his intention was to draw a parallel. - Algrif 15:13, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, the OED quotes his 1976 The Selfish Gene as saying:

The new soup is the soup of human culture. We need a name for the new replicator, a noun which conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. ‘Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene’. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme... It should be pronounced to rhyme with ‘cream’. Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.

But the question isn't Dawkins's intention, but rather how people actually say it.

—Ruakh_TALK 15:34, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's the way Dawkins and his team of supporters say it. Is that valid? BTW I'm not a Dawkins supporter personaly, but even I say the word like "cream". I would also state (POV) that I am very hard put to think of an English word ending in "e+consonant+e" that isn't pronounced that way. - Algrif 15:41, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Outside of linguistics ((deprecated template usage) phoneme, (deprecated template usage) lexeme, (deprecated template usage) grapheme, etc.), the only words I can think of ending in (deprecated template usage) -eme are (deprecated template usage) creme (French loanword, rhymes with "them") and (deprecated template usage) trireme (no clue how it's pronounced — "TRI-ruh-ME", maybe?). Of all of these, (deprecated template usage) creme is certainly the best-known, to the point that I can easily imagine people thinking (deprecated template usage) meme comes from French (deprecated template usage) même and pronouncing it accordingly. —Ruakh_TALK 17:08, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

TRI-reme rhymes with meme. -- Thisis0 17:08, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Extreme comes to mind. And monotreme. bd2412 T 16:32, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Who could forget theme, scheme, and supreme! Aw heck, or all the words on this list? -- Thisis0 18:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Either I'm from the UK or anon was just confused, thinking capital E represents "long E" (as we say in US English). DAVilla 15:04, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It has an intellectual user base, but I still don't think anyone in US would think of a French pronunciation for this (creme). I don't hear it spoken often, but would expect the vowel to sound something like the "e" in gene and to rhyme with "extreme". DCDuring 18:03, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. I guess it depends. Commercially, "creme" is used as a fancier spelling of "cream", and in that use it's pronounced the same as "cream"; but in "creme de la creme", "creme brulee", etc., it rhymes with "them" unless someone's trying to make ears bleed. :-P —Ruakh_TALK 03:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Parts of speech of reserved words in computing languages

I'm not sure whether we've decided to include computing languages in the remit of "all words in all languages" (at least, I haven't seen that discussion, but I haven't been around much lately so could well have missed it), but I think we have a problem: does it make sense to say that reserved words in computing languages have a part of speech?

If so, then many reserved words in computing languages inherit their part of speech from English (eg, POKE and GOTO in BASIC function like verbs, "while" in C/C++ functions like a conjunction, and "const" and "void" in C/C++ and "virtual" in C++ function like adjectives. But I think we run into trouble with other reserved words that have a more subtle syntactic relationship with the surrounding content.

I'm thinking of REM (used in BASIC to prefix a comment, that is, text that is there only as a note for humans to read and that is to be ignored by the computer). It is marked as a noun in the entry REM, and this is correct if it is allowed to inherit its part of speech from the English word "remark", which is a noun. If REM is indeed a noun, however, then how does that fit syntactically with the comment that follows? It might make more sense to treat it as a verb; then "REM this line of code is run twice" would "translate" into English as "Remark that this line of code...".

Or perhaps it is simply the case that it doesn't make sense to attribute parts of speech to reserved words, because the syntax of computing languages does not work in the same way as it does in natural languages. Do we then omit the part of speech for reserved words, or artificially try to shoehorn them into the parts of speech designed for natural languages, or create some would-be part of speech (like "Reserved word") for these entries? — Paul G 09:40, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am all for including them, along with the Airport codes above, and all other technical terms. It may be that, to gain consensus, these words will have to be relegated to an appendix, but I sincerely hope we can find a way of including these definitions in the main namespace. Conrad.Irwin 11:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough - if we are to do that, it needs to be discussed, because "all languages" may or may not be intended to include computing languages. However, this is not the issue here. — Paul G 11:21, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure that I remember a discussion some years ago, in which someone made the decision that we don't accept programming languages as actual languages (possibly because they don't have an ISO code). However, if you ever want to put it to the vote, I would support their inclusion. Of course, quotations of their use would have to come from published programs, not from reference manuals of syntax. (Oh, and I am thinking that they might all be verbs (maybe the imperative form?). SemperBlotto 11:40, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think REM is an interjection, since it doesn't seem to be an imperative verb, and it forms the entirety of its utterance; whatever follows is simply throat-clearing, and not actually part of the program, and therefore not actually part of the utterance. :-) Seriously, though, I'm not sure it's worthwhile to classify computer-language keywords by how they're used in the programming language; more meaningful is how they're used in English. "while" is usually used as an adjective or an attributive noun (I'm not sure which) in phrases like "while loop"; "rem", if it's used, is probably used as a noun in sentences like "always include lots of rems so people can understand your code, because you're a BASIC programmer, so it's a given that you don't know how to write self-documenting code" and as a verb in sentences like "I rem'd out these three statements, because it doesn't seem like they can ever be executed anyway" (though of course we'd need to make sure these uses are attested before we included them). —Ruakh_TALK 14:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Paul, I too dislike "shoehorning" them into regular English parts of speech. Where Ruakh indicates they also have entered the English language proper, it makes sense to have them listed as such, but I think something like ===Keyword=== might work for specific programming language descriptions. Like SB, I would very strongly support a policy proposal to allow programming languages as entries. I think that pretty much all of my personal "deletionist" opinions stem from that prohibition - if it is finally lifted, I personally would have no tenable argument against proper nouns, promotional or not. (Hippietrail pointed out that some restrictions are needed: entries written in binary, for one. And guidelines on punctuation would need to be reinforced, as we would want an entry for html but not [[<html>]].) Since these often are not case-sensitive (but Wiktionary is) we'd need to decide if they should be all uppercase, all lowercase or what. We'd also need criteria on which programming languages to include (presumably starting with ANSI standard languages, branching out from there.) Is "wikisyntax" a language? Lastly, we'd have to decide what language heading to use for each one, as ==Programming== is not specific enough. Language headings like ==Programming: C++== seem particularly problematic. --Connel MacKenzie 20:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

UK pronunciations

I'm aware that I've brought this up before, but I'm increasingly uncomfortable with our use of RP. Anyone interested in pronunciation sections please have a look at Wiktionary_talk:Pronunciation#UK_pronunciations and let me know any thoughts. Widsith 10:18, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template:nav and topic categories

At the moment, when {{nav}} is used to create topic categories in foreign languages, those categories are automagically included in the parent category for that language. This has the effect of filling up the top category with lots of topic categories and making it harder to find the categories for parts of speech etc.: see Category:French language or Category:Spanish language for examples. The *Topics category for these languages is often left virtually unpopulated.

I propose changing {{nav}} (which is protected, for obvious reasons) so that topic categories in the Xish language (ISO: xx) are placed in Category:xx:*Topics if that category exists, and only placed in Category:Xish language if there is no dedicated *Topics category (smaller languages).

Any comments or objections? Physchim62 12:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I favor a stronger simplification: keep only the default topical categorty and "parent" (which can be defined as *Topics), and drop the "default language" category (either "xish language or xx:*Topics" in yourproposition) altogether if a "parent" is defned, because if a topic is in xx:Society, putting it in xx:*Topics seems to defeat the idea of having a category structure to begin with. Circeus 21:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, that is the subject of a second proposition immediately below! :) I split the two propositions because I think that the cleaning out of the top language categories is more urgent. Physchim62 12:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category tree for topic categories

A related suggestion to the one above, but one which has received less support in private discussions, so I shall phrase it as a question: do we want to have all the topic categories listed in *Topics, or merely the top level categories (eg Category:xx:Sciences)? Physchim62 12:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merely the top level ones. *Topics is intended to be the root of a topical category tree. The structure of that tree should be parallel across all languages for which the English Wiktionary has categories. --EncycloPetey 02:23, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not all languages will need all categories, but if we can keep a single category tree it would very much help linking with other WMF projects (eg, Commons). Physchim62 12:58, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why do etymology templates link to Wikipedia?

Why do templates such as {{L.}} and {{F.}} (in this table and category) link to Wikipedia language articles rather than our own entries on those languages? The wiktionary entries include links to the Wikipedia articles anyways, and can provide helpful links to our language Appendices. I could see Wikipedia-linking if we don't have a sufficient article for the language, but is that still the case? And if so shouldn't we fix OUR articles instead? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 13:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I always assumed it was due to disambiguation. The Wikipedia articles are solely about the language, whereas the Wiktionary ones are about other things as well, so it could be misleading. Although it is obvious for me, and presumably other Wiktionary editors, that if I see a word's etymology is from Latin or French, a link to the Wikipedia language article makes it certain. Plus, the link to the Wikipedia article gives more information. A link to e.g. w:Malayalam language gives far more extra information than a link to Malayalam. I think a Wikipedia link and automatic categorisation works very well. This way all words stemming from the same language are together, and the reader can easily find, with one click, more information about the language and all its history, phonology etc. --Keene 13:44, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and on a further note, I believe we should work to have more interoperability and cross-linking where useful. As sister projects we should not practice isolation, or improving our pages beyond the need to linking to Wikipedia pages which already contain the information. I realize human instinct leads a community to territorialism, protectivism, hoarding, etc. - but asking "Why does a thing link to Wikipedia" reveals a flawed way of thinking that, I think, should instead be continually more inclusive and cross-utilized. -- Thisis0 17:50, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As Keene has noted, a link to a specific Wikipedia article eliminates possible ambiguity. The WP article identifies the language family, geographic distribution, and the history of the language. It is a more logical place to link for someone who is uncertain about the identity of a language. --EncycloPetey 02:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yiddish words in Latin characters, revisited

I've brought this up before, and so have others, but there are a number of entries in Latin characters with L2 header "Yiddish". (Yiddish is written in Hebrew characters, so this is an error.) One suggestion was to label them English; another was to keep them as are; another was to label them Yiddish and note that they are transliterations. I'm writing now to suggest another solution and see what people think of it. There's an ISO 639 language (code yib) called Yinglish, which is, according to Ethnologue, "a variety of English influenced by Yiddish (lexically, particularly, but also grammatically and phonetically)". (See also WP's article on Yinglish, although it's not written that well imo. And note also that we list Yinglish on the list of languages.) I suggest that we list these words as Yinglish, but don't want to make that change without some community approval. Your thoughts?—msh210℠ 18:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But see [1].—msh210℠ 19:53, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I'd like some sort of general-purpose way of dealing with terms that are kind-of between languages, like (deprecated template usage) z"l and (deprecated template usage) b"h (Hebrew acronyms transliterated into English letters but still punctuated and pronounced Hebrew-style), or (deprecated template usage) no problemo and (deprecated template usage) in silico (foreign-style phrases coined and used exclusively or primarily by English-speakers), or (deprecated template usage) crème brûlée and (deprecated template usage) façade (French terms borrowed into English but still often written French-style), or … well, you get the idea. We need some sort "miscellaneous" language header or something. :-P Failing that, "Yinglish" sounds good. :-) —Ruakh_TALK 02:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yinglish seems like it is a perfect example of an in-between category. Surprising that it is deemed a language. For the general case where ISO doesn't have a language, how about a master "tweener" (Please substitute good name.) category, with subcategories for the second language involved (if that is even needed because other language should have its header and entry) or for the nature of the "betweenness"? In the case of a multi-language entry where only two languages shared the same sense, we might need something else below language level, below PoS level, at sense level. DCDuring 03:51, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Really, "Yinglish" works quite well, I think. It definitely covers some of those words, which we could also add spelled properly in Hebrew letters --Neskaya ^talk 21:22, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How is this different from something like Japanese rōmaji (which have "Japanese" as a language header)? Mike Dillon 05:20, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

IMO, it isn't, and no such case should be tolerated. But there is entrenched support for romanized Japanese and Mandarin entries here. -- Visviva 01:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hyphenation and IPA standards

What is the standard for hyphenation and IPA? I've seen different formats in other FL entries. The following example can be seen at magas. Please advise if this is correct:

===Pronunciation===
*Hyphenation: ma·gas
* {{IPA|/ˈmɒgɒʃ/}}

Other variations I've found: hyphenation using a larger bullet to separate the syllables, IPA containing a language attribute.

===Pronunciation===
*Hyphenation: há•zon
*{{IPA|[ˈhaːzon]|lang=hu}}

Thanks. --Panda10 13:21, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I personally think the lang= should always be used, otherwise it will link to the entry for English phonology, which is useless if the template is being used to show the pronunciation of a word in any other language. The // vs [] is something else, though. I think they're supposed to mean something, but I don't remember what it is. I always use [], except for languages that I've only seen using // like French, just because I think it looks better. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 15:41, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Woot [2] — [ ric ] opiaterein — 15:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the information, Opiaterein. Based on this, the better option for IPA would be the second of the above two variations (which is IPA|[]|lang=hu). For hyphenation, it seems Wikipedia uses . (period). At least this is what I've seen just above the Brackets table on the IPA page when I clicked on the link you provided. A period would be easier for me to enter. I will wait for more feedback as to which one to go with. --Panda10 21:04, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The best way to do hyphenation is to use {{hyphenation}}, like this:

===Pronunciation===
*{{IPA|/ˈhaːzon/|lang=hu}}
*{{hyphenation|há|zon}}

This way, you merely type a pipe instead of some strange dot character. The difference between // and [] in the IPA has to do with whether the pronunciation given is phonemic (broad) or phonetic (narrow). If the pronunciation is broadly explained, and not overly precise, then // should be used. If the pronunciation transciption is precise and specific (such as for a particular regional dialect), then [] should be used. --EncycloPetey 02:05, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is very helpful. Thanks. --Panda10 02:20, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A dictionary should have very few occasions to use phonetic transcriptions, incidentally. We should be aiming to generalise as much as is sensible, and allophonic and personal variation are not relevant, IMHO. --Wytukaze 20:10, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lingua Franca Nova

I'd like to know others opinions about Lingua Franca Nova, I wasn't aware of the restriction on adding non-coded alt-langs to Wiktionary and I would still really like to add it. So, please be honest and realize I'm not militant, just really encouraged by how nice of a language LFN is...well, to me at least. I am told it will also need a WMF language code (e.g. art-lfn), so any help with making this happen would be much appreciated.

Thanks for reading. --Sano 15:58, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As a constructed language with fewer than 200 speakers, it's unlikely to be considered acceptable for inclusion. There are other, more widely used constructed languages that do not meet our criteria for inclusion. However, you could create an Appendix listing vocabulary, as we have done for Appendix:Quenya. --EncycloPetey 01:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What!? That's kinda silly, don't you think? I can make a word-list in an appendix, but I can't simply add info in other places? That seems to me kinda like having a special wall just for graffiti on the back side of the building, but all the other pictures are murals because they appeal to more people...whatever, no big deal. LFN isn't my language so I'm not really worried about it...I was just curious and hoping to add it. --Sano 03:48, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not silly - if it were not for the "minimum number of speakers" criterion, any of the zillion stupid conlangs would merit inclusion. It doesn't matter who created it or for what purpose; if it doesn't have ISO code, it usually means it's irrelevant. There are many other bastardized descendants ot Vulgar Latin you can contribute to though ^_^ --Ivan Štambuk 13:12, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You Sir, are not invited to my house for arts and crafts day...I'm afraid you'll ruin all of the children's egos. --Sano 00:41, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Attention to all: An Announcement

This was after I emailed the ISO 639-3 Registration Authority and asked what plans they had for LFN...and now we see. (*politely sticks tongue out at nay-sayers) --Sano 00:34, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please be advised that the existence of an ISO language code does not mean that a language qualifies for inclusion. ISO codes are merely a convenience here. We have words in a number of languages that have no ISO code (such as extinct languages or languages of aboriginal Australia), and there are languages with ISO codes that are specifically disallowed (such as Quenya and Klingon). Lingua Franca Nova will still fall into the latter category, even with an ISO code. --EncycloPetey 02:20, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since you're asking for opinions, my opinion is that it doesn't merit inclusion. Mike Dillon 04:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So, I guess I'm regulated to making an index? In that case I can make an index for any language that I please? I ask because after looking at the criteria for inclusion very briefly, I don't see why not, unless the situation is simply that there is some sort of picky-ness going on here that I am missing... --Sano 15:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not an index, but an appendix. These are two different namespaces. But to answer your question, we have formally voted to allow Appendices like Appendix:Quenya and Appendix:Sindarin. We have not formally decided whether this extends to languages like Lingua Franca Nova, but I expect that it would. You could probably create Appendix:Lingua Franca Nova without opposition. --EncycloPetey 01:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right, finger vs organ, got it. So...when does the tribunal convene? And what's this about opposition? Is that like an insurgency? Do I need to reinforce my borders or something? --Sano 01:45, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's just that some artificial languages are more controversial than others. Klingon was discussed quite a bit the last time the issue was raised. And Brithenig has been actively discouraged. You'll notice in CFI that Brithenig is termed "not yet approved" for inclusion, but Lingua Franca Nova is described as having "no consensus", which means either no vote has happened or a vote happened but reached no conclusion. In this case, I think it's that no vote has happened. --EncycloPetey 01:54, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Controversial? What!? It's not like I'm proposing pages upon pages of porn or abortion propaganda...it's a freakin' auxlang...one that is accepted, by a good many people, and one that I think merits inclusion just as much as Esperanto or Ido. Whose feathers must one flick to get some action on the approval of LFN for some sort of inclusion? Or is it one of those things where there will be endless academic discussion without any discernible results? --Sano 18:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Esperanto is just barely included. I think the bar has to be set there because swathes of literature has been written in or translated into Esperanto; Esperanto has a cultural history; there have been geographical communities that chose Esperanto as an official language; and some descendents of generations of Esperantists could even claim to be native speakers. Not counting Esperanto would be almost tantamount to not counting Modern Hebrew, as it is a reconstructed language & some people have lived their whole lives using Modern Hebrew and not fully grasping any other languages. I don't think it's about flicking feathers. I think it's about getting hundreds of people to use a working version of LFN, teaching it to their children and grandchildren, posting original works in it, translating hundreds of books older than a century into it, lobbying governments to the point they seriously consider making it official, and waiting half a century for this work to become public knowledge. This is my opinion and I love conlangs/ auxlangs. If there were no appendix to add a conlang, I'd be up in arms, but I can see reason in the way we do things. In fact, for a decade I've wished books could be written with IPA superscripts and Han subscripts surrounding every sentence, so that non-native users can immediately both pronounce and comprehend such books, no matter what language or script it is written in and thus read it out to a native speaker. w:Furigana takes it part of the way, but the w:kana syllabary has a low number of phonemes and the w:okurigana make no sense to the Chinese, a huge language group. --Thecurran 08:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Colloquial anatomy

Could we have a category subordinate to Category:Anatomy for colloquial anatomical terms (just see the extensive list of synonyms for forefinger)? If need be a category (or two) for euphemisms or vulgar terms could be appended to that then. I make a suggestion in the header for what the name of such a category should be. Another would be Category:Colloquial anatomical names. __meco 02:37, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I made {{anatomy slang}}. That might be a good start. Quite a fun project to. --Keene 00:11, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll listen to other suggestions before expanding it. --Keene 00:16, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it terms now end up in three topical categories? Also the template itself should be categorized into the new category. Shouldn't the template code take care of all of that? __meco 11:59, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can use {{subst:new label}} to start a context template that conforms to the usual norms -- or at least to what those norms were a few months ago; nobody seems to bother writing anything down around here, so probably everything has changed since then. However, for a context template to work optimally we need to figure out what the optimal category name would be ... "Anatomical slang" strikes me as ambiguous: slang about anatomy or slang used among anatomists? (both exist...) I would suggest that the category be Category:Slang terms for body parts and that the visible label simply read "(slang)," since these terms (for the most part) would not be used by anatomists. -- Visviva 13:42, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not all colloquialisms are really slang. And, I don't think all anatomical colloquialisms are terms for body parts, though this is a bit debatable; I'm thinking of terms like (deprecated template usage) baby fat and (deprecated template usage) roll of fat and (deprecated template usage) double chin. —Ruakh_TALK 14:38, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that colloquial rather than slang is the most apt, like the term lickpot for the forefinger or index finger (those two should fit in the anatomy proper category). __meco 18:16, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Upcoming vote on attestation criteria

Please make any last comments on Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2007-12/Attestation criteria before the vote starts. Of course it can be delayed if there are any major problems. DAVilla 15:29, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll need to give the current wording careful though, but one item does stand out, and that is "classical work". Classical has too many possible meanings to be a good choice for this principle, including one sense that would limit its application to translations of ancient Greek and Latin literature. We need to find a better way to say this. I can't think of anything useful for this at the moment. --EncycloPetey 17:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you think of anything, feel free to edit directly and just delay the vote by a day or two. However, I wouldn't say it has to be any more well defined than "clearly widespread". DAVilla 00:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comparative forms

The current model I follow for comparative forms of Hungarian adjectives is a simple statement "Comparative form of xyz" without an English translation. The text is generated by a template. I'd like to add the translation but not sure where. Please look at magasabb (taller), the comparative form of magas (tall). It would be more meaningful to see "taller" instead of "Comparative form of magas" in the definition line. The explanation could go either under Etymology or Usage notes. Another example is olcsóbb, where the translation is added before the template but looks strange because the template starts Comparative with a capital letter. Do we really want to add a separate entry for all these inflected forms for adjectives? --Panda10 20:55, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The "goal" of wiktionary is to have an entry for every word in every language (or something) so yeah, we want all those forms. You don't have to add them right now, though. They're secondary to base forms.

If I want to put a definition along with a form-of word, I put it after the form-of information. See the very minor edit I put into magasabb. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 22:01, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like that with some minor changes in the template to make it look like other similar templates:

(comparative form of magas) taller

This would require the following changes in the template: comparative with small c, no period after magas, italics, parentheses. Is this feasible? This template is used in other FL entries, too. --Panda10 23:12, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, this whole topic is a matter of ongoing debate. —Ruakh_TALK 04:14, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah... anything "form-of" related is touchy touchy stuff. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 16:11, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is good reason not to do it this way, at least in general. I think it was EP who had commented on it best, but I'm not sure where. Not everything form-of related is touchy though. Some things are just shaky. ;-) DAVilla 18:03, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary:Beer parlour, a free definition from Wiktionary

Seriously? Lol... Surely we can do something better than "a free definition", especially considering that there are a lot of words with more than "a" definition in one language. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 21:58, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bad (very bad) attempt to add keywords to Google. Gone again. (Google would have ignored it the very moment they noticed it anyway. (they do any number of things like that) Robert Ullmann 22:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Move back to WT:GP. --Connel MacKenzie 01:20, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Timezones

At User:Connel MacKenzie/timezones#Results I have the timezones "recognized" by Java on toolserver. (YMMV.) How can these be worked into Wiktionary? Obviously we have to skip all the ones with "/" in the entry title, but what of the rest? Appendix or something? --Connel MacKenzie 04:42, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The ids that are used by the code for getAvailableIDs() are not really the ones that a person would use to refer to the time zone. I've taken the liberty of re-running similar code and regenerating the list. Feel free to revert it or move it to another page if you like. Mike Dillon 05:37, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I have locally adapted the Groovy code I posted to run this for multiple Locales. Mike Dillon 05:54, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the output for all locales that my JDK supports: User:Mike Dillon/timezones. I've made it only print unique names and dropped the timezone ids since they aren't what people call the time zone. Some of the countries used in the locales are arbitrary (e.g. "es_PE" for Spanish), but the list is unique and I don't think they're necessarily country-specific (except zh_TW v. zh_CN). Mike Dillon 06:31, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The problem I ran into, was setting up a new "personality" for the bot - asking for the desired timezones in long format. I've no idea where to find the official list of composite names (that include the slash, as is required in that context.) I'm not sure what RFC might cover them...the ones I saw deferred the issue. Anyhow, FANTASTIC STUFF MIKE! --Connel MacKenzie 06:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mike, your outputs make the problem slightly worse, as it is even more unclear which of those meet CFI. Does "inclusion in a global protocol" merit inclusion for a place name? Or rather, shouldn't it? --Connel MacKenzie 06:53, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe those timezone ids are the ones from the Olson database. I'm not sure they're covered by an RFC, but the Olson DB seems to be pretty widely accepted as a (descriptive) standard for the use of time zones on computers. I'm not sure where the JDK got the names from. Since there isn't a standards body defining these things, I think lists like this one can only be used as a starting point for where to look for citations; I can't see including them wholesale. Mike Dillon 06:58, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent information - thank you. Since that is public domain I don't see any reason not to include them all. Comments from others are appreciated... --Connel MacKenzie 08:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that, where possible, we should try and include entities from standards, but I suppose it depends under what licenses the information is obtainable - there would be no reason (as with Airport codes above, and Chemical symbols) not to include an entry - even if there was nothing more to say about it than link to the 'pedia article. I am all for including everything! Conrad.Irwin 13:45, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Slashes in page names

Connel mentioned in #Timezones above that slashes are not allowed in page names. After the creation of the Citations namespace, are there any more conventional uses of subpages in the main namespace? If there aren't we could get the developers to turn off subpages in the main namespace to allow slashes in page names were appropriate (it's a per-namespace setting in MediaWiki). I can't say one way or another whether there are any otherwise acceptable entries with slashes in their names, but I don't see any reason to keep the restriction if we aren't actually using subpages. Mike Dillon 06:24, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I think subpages are turned off for NS:0. But "/experiment" and "/citations" pages exist for many NS:0 pages, that have to be programmatically excluded from various things. The only request I've seen in the past (from Hippietrail) was to have subpages turned on for NS:0. --Connel MacKenzie 06:51, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think they are turned on, see lead/experiment - there is no link at the top back up again. Compare with User:Conrad.Irwin/anger which does have the link back up. Conrad.Irwin 13:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we have n/a and and/or. —Ruakh_TALK 14:31, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

... and (deprecated template usage) c/o, (deprecated template usage) s/he, (deprecated template usage) w/, and (deprecated template usage) w/o. Rod (A. Smith) 18:02, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There have been a few cases where etymologies or word histories have been set up as subpages the way citations used to be. As far as I know, this never caught on widely, and there are only a few instances of such a thing. However, I do not recall which words had such pages established. --EncycloPetey 01:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Citations should be a reasonable starting point. Conrad.Irwin 01:02, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:Conrad.Irwin/Citations and User:Conrad.Irwin/Not citations gives the full list of pages with forward slash in the title as of last XML dump. It would appear that the Citations pages will probably need the attention of an automaton - which given time I would like to have a go at - while the other list contains several pages that should probably be deleted. Conrad.Irwin 02:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the browser URL bar & many other computing situations, %20 = " ", %21 = "!", %22 = """, %23 = "#", %24 = "$", %25 = "%", %26 = "&", %27 = "'", %28 = "(", %29 = ")", %2A = "*", %2B = "+", %2C = ",", %2D = "-", %2E = ".", & %2F = "/". We already re-interpret " " -> %20 as "_". Isn't there some way to name pages with %2F after the "http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/" instead of the subdirectory-denoting "/" to help our search engines out? --Thecurran 08:15, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Long-term, can we get them to turn off all special characters? That would be so much more elegant. DAVilla 17:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Translingual ISO & IUPAC Symbols

I don't feel comfortable spacedocking from CH#translingual's example of Switzerland, DE's, ER's by user:SemperBlotto, or GR to post the w:ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code for each of the 192 independent UN member states (as used in ccTLDs) with a complex sentence blurb, because it would tread on many more toes than simply following the exhaustive example from the postal abbreviations of each US state within the English sections, despite their international use in w:ISO 3166-2. I feel the same way about the w:ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes that will take prominence in the upcoming Olympics. I do, however, wish to applaud H#translingual's lead on the symbol for Hydrogen as well as the rest of the chemical elements. I'd like to update them with translations to their official Chinese symbol counterparts, though. --Thecurran 04:41, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, the symbols of the chemical elements really are translingual, in that they are also used in languages without Latin scripts: hence Cu is the symbol for copper (from Latin cuprum), whereas the character for copper is 銅 (铜 in simplified characters, tóng in Mandarin, dō (どう) in Japanese, dong (동) in Korean). Just a thought! Physchim62 12:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your point is well-taken. It's just that I feel that people have put a lot of work into making single gylph chemical symbols for Simplified Chinese, which is an official UN script, that the one-to-one correspondence is elegant, and that many of these Han symbols are used by a quarter or more of the world's population, ranging widely geographically and truly trans-lingually, though not universally. If this argument is not strong enough, I'm happy to forgo this project.:)--Thecurran 13:42, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No forgoing! I'm sure there's a policy against that :). The main issue is that "Translingual" is not a black and white property. The symbols are translingual in the sense that they are used in more than one language, but they are not translingual in the sense that they are used in all languages. What would be better would be to have a more specific heading, though how to do that would stretch the Wiktionary discussion rooms to breaking point. Though I see no immediate problem with them being put under English or Translingual, they are both nearly correct, we will probably have to come to a decision at some point. (Food for thought) A scale of increasing translinguality: Place names; Given names; Brand names; Internet slang; Country codes & Language codes; Chemical symbols; Currency codes; Airport codes. </original research>. Conrad.Irwin 18:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Request of permission

User: FiloSottile (it) [3]
Name: --BotSottile 17:11, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Software: pywikipedia
Tasks: interwiki

See note on talk page; we have a much more efficient bot User:Interwicket that updates all of the iwikis here. We will not approve another iwiki bot unless it is specifically doing only new pages on wikts other than the ones already covered by VolkovBot.

the wikipedia-style interwiki process is not really appropriate to the wikts, and even many months of running will leave many iwikis missing, particularly for smaller wikts. Interwicket's last run added ~45K new iwikis to 30K entries, doing all of them in one pass. Robert Ullmann 17:17, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No thank you. --Connel MacKenzie 18:43, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Translations of "Translingual" words

Translations are currently allowed only under English entries. I think they should be allowed under Translingual entries as well, because in most cases translinguality is actually limited to a small sample of the 216 languages of Wiktionary. As an example, there is currently no place where one could enter a Japanese (or any other) translation to the word Eukaryota. This is not only a question of transliteration, since Eukaryota is not a valid word in many languages that are written with Latin characters either. As an example, in Finnish the word eukaryootit is used in scientific context, but the high school biology books talk about aitotumaiset, which is not a colloquial term, but the recommended standard Finnish word which is completely acceptable in scientific text as well. I could easily list hundreds of "Translingual" terms which have the same or a related problem. Furthermore, among languages using Latin characters, the problem is not limited in Finnish. It applies to Swedish, German and probably to a large number of other languages. One could even argue that most Translingual entries are actually English - which argument leads to a simple solution: if the header "Translingual" were changed to "English" in those articles where translations exist, one could "legally" enter them. Hekaheka 15:56, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not knowing any Finnish, perhaps I shouldn't doubt you, but are you sure Eukaryota is not used? Compare English, where Eukaryota is the "scientific" name, but eukaryote is the term used everywhere, including, I suspect, in a scientific context. Eukaryota, when used in English, is recognized as foreign (people informally call it "the Latin name"). Is it not used in that way in Finnish? I thought taxa were truly translingual.—msh210℠ 16:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The taxa are also only kind of translingual. They are acceptable, but not likely to be widely understood. For example, it would not exactly be an error to use the term Asteraceae or Compositae in a Finnish or Swedish non-scientific text, but it would probably be understood only by botanists. Instead, mykerökukkaiset or korgblommiga växter would be understood by almost everyone. These terms have an exact meaning in Finnish and Swedish respectively. Hekaheka 10:11, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But to answer your main point about including translations of translingual words into languages that don't carry those words, yes, I think we should allow it, under a Translations header. We should also list languages that do use the translingual word, either under a new header designed for that purpose, or (perhaps) under Usage notes. But for termsthat are the same in many languages (such as (deprecated template usage) 1), even though they don't exist in all languages, I support the Translingual header as opposed to listing every language individually (which seems to be what you're suggesting in your last sentence, Hekaheka).—msh210℠ 18:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We should certainly permit translations for Translingual terms, if English is among the languages in which the term is used. Few if any Translingual terms are truly universal; they just happen to be shared among a large number of languages. -- Visviva 17:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

agree. Very much unlike translingual symbols like, say the male/female symbols, or ♥. Circeus 20:32, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Even symbols can be iffy; there's a Hebrew alternative plus sign (﬩), for example (though in my experience the ordinary plus sign + is more common in Israel). —Ruakh_TALK 01:08, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't a seealso/related header do the trick? Circeus 21:39, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since this would be a major change in the way we do things, I'd want to see a couple of examples of the proposed formatting, and probably a vote. I'm against the idea, though I do understand the issue and the need, and would be willing to change my mind if a suitable format existed to address potential issues. --EncycloPetey 01:39, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tossed together one possibility at User:Visviva/Canis. Not sure about placement of the notes; I think that in general the Usage notes section, wherever it is, should include pronunciation and inflection information for each language where this is available. I'm not sure why this would need a vote (but then again, I don't really understand why anything needs a vote). -- Visviva 16:29, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:Visviva/Canis is good.—msh210℠ 18:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to know what classifies as translingual. I believe it's reasonable to call the a current taxonomic name translingual. I mean, I bought a snow monkey photo booklet <10$ in a Japanese park, very much written for Japanese layfolk and even it uses the same Latin script nomenclature in a few notes in the back. Besides, most English-speaking layfolk I know couldn't describe a Eukaryote or what falls under Eukaryota. That's why the pseudo-names in roadrunner cartoons are so funny. I still think it would help to have translingual entry like a species' name link through to its common name in other languages. Under the current system, it would seem best to link the species name to an English common name, and bear translations from there. Whether you put it on the same page or list it as a See Also or Synonym doesn't concern me. I further think that Hebrew plus signs as well as numerals from sytems beside the Hindu-Arabic, etc. are important and may be used more frequently in many situations, but in inter-ethnic communication, these "other" characters are superceded. As such, I assert the international Taxonomic nomenclature and Scientific and Mathematical Symbols are truly translingual and we just need to keep up with ISO, IUPAC, IUPAP, ICZN, ICBN, etc. Special things like ♂ should be noted as meaning male almost everywhere but it competes with 火 to mean Mars. :) babl --Thecurran 01:39, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Commons pictues

I know we use Commons pictures frequently here, but wonder whether there's some specific subset of Commons pictures we're allowed to use, or whether, on the contrary, any Commons picture at all may be used. (I'm confused because my understanding is that Wiktionary aims to be GFDL, whereas many Commons pictures are under other, incompatible, licenses, such as cc-by-sa.)—msh210℠ 18:15, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that we use whatever commons: has, deferring all media-licensing issues to them. --Connel MacKenzie 19:42, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!—msh210℠ 19:46, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cc-by-sa licenses have heretofore been considered GFDL-compatible, both on Commons and also on EN Wikipedia et al. Cc-by-sa-nc would be another matter, but fortunately those aren't allowed on Commons anyway. -- Visviva 15:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Orthography & Spelling

hello everyone,
in the Tee Room of the German wiktionary a controversial discussion is going on about how to deal with having different types of english spelling rules in different anglophone countries (UK, USA, Australia, etc.) and how this will effect english articles in de.wikt.
one of us came up with the idea of avoiding duplicated articles that just differ in spelling by introducing a template like this {{american spelling|[[word]]}} which should indicate that this particular spelling of a word is only formally allowed in the US. another one of us responded by stressing that this template could cause more irritation, because e.g. in Australia both spellings (british and american) are formally allowed; in Canada no standardised spelling regulation exists. so, for instance, when you create an article for an english verb ending with -ise / -ize you could choose one spelling as the main spelling - for instance the british one. if the verb has the same meaning in all english speaking countries you could create another article (with the second spelling) that now contains only the template indicating that the verb with this particular spelling is only used in the US but has the same meaning like the verb spelled british. but then you recognise both spellings being correct in Australia. so you should create another template. one for the australian spelling which should be added in both articles. and this could go on and on!!
so, the point is how are you dealing with articles that have exactly the same content/meaning and just differ in spelling? could someone of you give us a hint to solve this problem? which one is the main spelling in en.wikt? is there any at all? how do you deal with e.g. -or / -our or with -ise / -ize? do you simply duplicate such articles? -- thank You in advance, cheers Caligari, 22:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

While that would probably be a good idea, we can't seem to decide which spellings should be the main ones. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 01:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We don't have just one way to deal with these problems. We have several approaches in use, and have not agreed yet on any single solution. --EncycloPetey 01:44, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello EncycloPetey,
can You show me what kind of approaches you have in use? and can you show me where to find the main discussions here about this spelling issue? - cheers, Caligari, 15:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Part of the issue is also that, with increasing internationalisation, spelling (not to mention usage) has come to be more fluctuant in the UK (and in some case, the U.S.) than it used to be (much to the chagrin of the linguistic conservatives, of course). And that's ignoring the issue of Canadian (somewhere halfway) and other variant spellings (I know nothing myself of usual Indian, South African or Australian spelling). Circeus 21:42, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In many cases, I think we double the pages, as dictionary entries are short, unlike in Wikipedia where a re-direct would be used to whichever form was used when the page was first written. Generally last century, most English-speakers would understand Canadians most easily, having read British English but heard American English, thanks to the body of British Literature and American media. With the rise of the Internet and multi-nationals, however, American spelling is on the rise, even in many English schools for foreign speakers.

Personally in international contexts, I try to use -ize (US) to separate from "advertisement" (universal) and -our (UK) to separate from "error" (universal), because such splits demonstrate more etymological history and being of neither type is neutral and kind of acceptable to other Commonwealth speakers. I watch Deutsche Welle news in English and they use American accents and seem to avoid words that cause such controversy by using other synonyms.

If it becomes a real problem, just take a vote and settle on the Oxford English Dictionary (UK) or Webster's (US). In Australia, most modern UK terminology never took root, thanks to US market dominance; "truck" is used, instead of "lorry". Unless, the EU decides quite soon to firmly establish British English, I imagine such market forces will see American spelling and pronunciation overshadow British, despite geographical considerations. Considering that the UK is yet to adopt euros and other signs of wanting to stay different from continental Europe like left-side driving, I just can't see that happening.

In five years, I imagine the argument will be settled in favour of the US style, so if you had to vote, I would go with Webster's. Once again, I personally wouldn't choose either. :) --Thecurran 10:07, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank You all for commenting on this issue. I just wrote in the german Tee Room that You have no clear position on spelling either and that You just duplicate complete articles that differ in spelling. I also mentioned there that You suggest first to vote for a main spelling and settle on the Oxford English Dictionary or on Webster's. - Thank You again, best regards, Caligari 13:31, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Er, I may be wrong, but I don't think those statements are quite accurate. We aim to cover all forms of all words in all languages, so of course both spellings should be included. Which one is treated as primary, and is favored with translations et al., is of course subject to debate; however, voting on such an issue would be highly counterproductive. Our typical de facto approach is seen in entry pairs such as realize and realise. Duplicating entries by hand, although superficially attractive, creates serious maintainability issues. One attempted remedy is Template:color-colour (noun), although that has never gained widespread acceptance. -- Visviva 10:11, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The first part, though simplistic, sounds like a pretty good summary, although in truth they're thus far only duplicated when contentious, as too many words simply avoid our attention. We've had a number of hairy battles over the issue, and that's the best way to solve it. Technical solutions that transclude common sections are too complex.

(I should point out that, outside of the US/UK conflict, many times we do have alternative spellings that are not fully duplicated, which is not generally seen as a problem. Both pages exist, but one is essentially a stub, labeled as an alternative spelling of the other.)

The second part was just one person's suggestion. Personally I don't think you should vote between OED and Websters for primary spelling. If it follows either rule then it is a primary spelling in some part of the world. There's also the problem that they may not have exactly the same meaning, eg. program vs. programme. DAVilla 17:47, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sweet! That sounds like a great template. Say, if you could show me the error of my ways on the inaccurate statements/ assumptions I greenhorned in, both my talk page and I would be all ears. --Thecurran 16:07, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just a comment on "Webster's", which someone recommended as represnting standard U.S. spelling. There's no one dictionary known as "Webster's": there are many. See [4] for more on that, and for three recommendations for good American-English dictionaries.—msh210℠ 18:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mycenaean Greek

Anyone interested in Mycenaean Greek should check out a new discussion at Wiktionary talk:About Ancient Greek#Mycenaean.......Greek? Redux. All others, please disregard. Thanks. Atelaes 09:12, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:Keene/Comp

I have created a new competition, open to everybody. It is similar to one I've used at work. The winning entry there was about 2000 words though, but I'm not expecting anything that gargantuan. Enjoy, here. --Keene 13:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

IPA w:Alveolar trill vs. w:Alveolar approximant

I have noticed in Wiktionary (too many examples to name, but you can probably find one) that many times when the alveolar approximant appears in a word, it is represented by Lua error: Please specify a language code in the first parameter; the value "[r]" is not valid (see Wiktionary:List of languages). (instead of the correct Lua error: Please specify a language code in the first parameter; the value "[ɹ]" is not valid (see Wiktionary:List of languages).), which is actually the symbol for the w:Alveolar trill. I can understand how IPA can be difficult (I didn't have that problem, but some might). It has many symbols unfamiliar to people using non-Latin writing systems. However to use incorrect IPA is detestable to me. It confuses people who do and don't know IPA alike, (since the same symbol represents the trill), as to whether to use the trill or the approximant. This is not confusing to native English speakers (except with a new word or place name), but for non-English speakers learning English whose native language has the trill and the approximant (e.g.: Spanish), it is very hard to tell whether it's the trill or the approximant. On IRC, BadTypoDog recommended w:ASCII-IPA since it is easier, and some people don't have the fonts that display IPA correctly. And don't even get me started on names, which I have a hard enough time pronuncing just because of this factor.

Something needs to be done about this. --Ionas 68.224.117.152 19:26, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 551: / Line 551: @@
 I have created a new competition, open to everybody. It is similar to one I've used at work. The winning entry there was about 2000 words though, but I'm not expecting anything that gargantuan. Enjoy, [[User:Keene/Comp|here]]. --[[User:Keene|Keene]] 13:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
+== IPA [[:w:Alveolar trill]] vs. [[:w:Alveolar approximant]] ==
+I have noticed in Wiktionary (too many examples to name, but you can probably find one) that many times when the alveolar approximant appears in a word, it is represented by {{IPA|[r]}} (instead of the correct {{IPA|[ɹ]}}), which is actually the symbol for the [[:w:Alveolar trill]]. I can understand how IPA can be difficult (I didn't have that problem, but some might). It has many symbols unfamiliar to people using non-Latin writing systems. However to use incorrect IPA is detestable to me. It confuses people who do and don't know IPA alike, (since the same symbol represents the trill), as to whether to use the trill or the approximant. This is not confusing to native English speakers (except with a new word or place name), but for non-English speakers learning English whose native language has the trill and the approximant (e.g.: Spanish), it is very hard to tell whether it's the trill or the approximant. On IRC, BadTypoDog recommended [[:w:ASCII-IPA]] since it is easier, and some people don't have the fonts that display IPA correctly. And don't even get me started on names, which I have a hard enough time pronuncing just because of this factor.
+Something needs to be done about this. --Ionas [[Special:Contributions/68.224.117.152|68.224.117.152]] 19:26, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Beer parlour: difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:26, 22 January 2008

Contents

Policies in development

January 2008

translations between FLs of non-English phrases

"Abbreviation" L3 header

Proposed vote on fiction concordances.

Why we can not permit the "non-lemma" format to be considered standard

template:smarter

Declension templates, opinion gathering

Postpositional pronomial forms

Reverting

meme

Parts of speech of reserved words in computing languages

UK pronunciations

Template:nav and topic categories

Category tree for topic categories

Why do etymology templates link to Wikipedia?

Yiddish words in Latin characters, revisited

Hyphenation and IPA standards

Lingua Franca Nova

Category:Colloquial anatomy

Upcoming vote on attestation criteria

Comparative forms

Wiktionary:Beer parlour, a free definition from Wiktionary

Timezones

Slashes in page names

Translingual ISO & IUPAC Symbols

Request of permission

Translations of "Translingual" words

Commons pictues

Orthography & Spelling

Mycenaean Greek

User:Keene/Comp

IPA w:Alveolar trill vs. w:Alveolar approximant

Navigation menu

Wiktionary:Beer parlour: difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:26, 22 January 2008

Policies in development

January 2008

translations between FLs of non-English phrases

"Abbreviation" L3 header

Proposed vote on fiction concordances.

Why we can not permit the "non-lemma" format to be considered standard

template:smarter

Declension templates, opinion gathering

Postpositional pronomial forms

Reverting

meme

Parts of speech of reserved words in computing languages

UK pronunciations

Template:nav and topic categories

Category tree for topic categories

Why do etymology templates link to Wikipedia?

Yiddish words in Latin characters, revisited

Hyphenation and IPA standards

Lingua Franca Nova

Category:Colloquial anatomy

Upcoming vote on attestation criteria

Comparative forms

Wiktionary:Beer parlour, a free definition from Wiktionary

Timezones

Slashes in page names

Translingual ISO & IUPAC Symbols

Request of permission

Translations of "Translingual" words

Commons pictues

Orthography & Spelling

Mycenaean Greek

User:Keene/Comp

IPA w:Alveolar trill vs. w:Alveolar approximant

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