Wiktionary:Translingual entry guidelines

This is a Wiktionary policy, guideline or common practices page. Specifically it is a policy think tank, working to develop a formal policy. Policies – Entries: CFI - EL - NORM - NPOV - QUOTE - REDIR - DELETE. Languages: LT - AXX. Others: BLOCK - BOTS - VOTES.

Main category: Translingual language

This page explains the Wiktionary treatment of translingual entries. These are entries that have identical definitions in many languages. This generally occurs for terms that are not inflected.

For simplicity, these terms have a single entry with a "Translingual" language header, and use the mul language code. There is some disagreement about the criteria for what makes certain terms Translingual, though some agreement has been found on a variety of terms.

Scope

The scope of use varies a bit between types of current Translingual entries. Chemical formulae, for instance, are used identically in practically all languages, whereas Han characters are not used natively outside of Asia. There is disagreement over whether "Translingual" should be restricted to only those entries used in all languages, or whether it is sufficient to have very similar usage in a large number of different languages. For entries of the second type, often the common information is explained in the Translingual entry, with individual language differences detailed in separate language sections.

This document does not supersede the Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion (CFI). Entries must be attested, however, these attestations can be in any language that meets CFI. The following types of terms have been accepted as translingual:

Characters and symbols

• Characters (e.g. a and 1 and 克) that have the same definition in multiple languages.
• Mathematical symbols such as operators (e.g. +) and functions (e.g. sin)
• Common punctuation such as ? used in multiple languages.
• Chemical formulae (main category), such as H₂O.
• Miscellaneous symbols such as © and ♣.

Codes

• Top-level domains (main category; e.g. .com)
• E numbers (main category; e.g. E100)
• ISO codes (main category)
  • ISO 216 paper size codes (main category; e.g. A4)
  • ISO 217 paper size codes (main category; e.g. RA0)
  • ISO 269 paper size codes (main category; e.g. C4)
  • ISO 639 language codes (main category; e.g. de, deu, and ger)
  • ISO 3166 country codes (main category; e.g. FR and FRA)
  • ISO 4217 currency codes (main category; e.g. GBP).
  • ISO 15924 script codes (main category; e.g. Latn)
• IATA airport codes (e.g. JFK)
• Abbreviations for units of measure (such as kg, m, and s)

Words

• Taxonomic names (main category), such as Escherichia coli.

Rejected scope

Uniting these under a Translingual header would mean the loss of information for the individual languages concerned, such as pronunciation and grammatical functions.

• Place names (such as Malta and Paris).
• Italianate music terms (such as lento and adagio).

These terms are considered sum-of-parts and are therefore ineligible for entries.

• Compound ISO 639 and ISO 3166 dialect codes (such as en-US, fr-CA and pt-BR).

Under discussion

The classification of the following types of content is so far unresolved:

• Translation sections. Usually only English sections are allowed to have translations, however many Translingual terms are used in English, so it seems logical to allow translations in Translingual. See Wiktionary:Translations for more information.
  • However note that Wikispecies contains sections for vernacular names of biological taxonomy – see for example Capra nubiana there –, which can be adduced as a reason to shun the creation of translation sections at least for the scientific names of biology (Wikispecies can actually peruse contributors interested in such sections and we do not want to waste manpower and get out of sync by having redundant sections).

Entry layout

See also: Wiktionary:Entry layout

Pronunciation

Since pronunciation varies by language, Translingual entries should not generally have pronunciations. For a small class of entries such as single letters, a pronunciation section is acceptable, such as at A.

Other languages

A Translingual entry is placed at the top of the page above all other languages.

The classification of a term as Translingual does not prevent the article having sections for other languages. For example, .com has an English section and a Translingual section.