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This is the page for proposing changes to Wiktionary's category and label treatment practices, including creating, renaming, merging and splitting.

Category creations: When proposing a new category, please give several examples of entries that belong in the proposed category (unless it is obvious).

Category changes: Use this page if you want to propose a non-trivial change to:

  • A category that is currently handled by the category tree (i.e. whose definition is handled by {{auto cat}}), particularly but not limited to cross-language topic and grammatical categories. Note that topic categories cover a particular semantic area, such as Category:Hindu deities, and their language-specific incarnations are prefixed with the code of the language in question (e.g. Category:en:Hindu deities), while grammatical categories cover a particular syntactic or morphological area, such as Category:Proper nouns by language, and their language-specific incarnations are prefixed with the name of the language in question (e.g. Category:English proper nouns). Categories limited to a particular language (which currently is only possible for grammatical categories) may be best discussed among the editors of that language community in question.
  • A label that is currently defined in the label data, particularly but not limited to cross-language labels. Labels restricted to a particular language (which are often names of varieties of that language) may be best discussed among the editors of that language community in question.

Category deletion: Request deletion of content categories (topics, dialects, grammatical categories, and similar) here. For other categories, post at Requests for deletion/Others.

In all cases, the {{cltr}} template may be used in on relevant category pages to attract attention to your discussion.

Archiving: Category and label treatment requests, once closed and (if applicable) acted upon, are archived on Wikipedia-style archive subpages. These can be found at Wiktionary:Category and label treatment requests/Archives and in the list below:

Category and label treatment requests: Archive index

2015

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Continuation of #Category:en:Names into Category:English names

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Latest comment: 2 years ago27 comments6 people in discussion

Reviving the earlier discussion, I'm still bothered by the fact that we have two different categories for names. But the previous discussion also made it clear that it's not as easy as just merging them.

—CodeCat 00:45, 10 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

FWIW, what I am going to say is somewhat off-topic and maybe I'm minority on that, but I would not mind using the naming system "Category:English xxxx" for all topical categories: Category:en:Chess -> English terms related to chess. (or any better name along those lines) --Daniel Carrero (talk) 00:59, 10 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
"Category:en:Transliteration of personal names" could be renamed to "Category:English names transliterated from other languages", I suppose. What's the matter with the demonyms category? It contains demonyms, as expected. Would it be better titled "English demonyms", on the model of "English phrases"? - -sche (discuss) 06:02, 10 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
"Category:en:Transliteration of personal names" would be better named "English transliterations of (foreigners') personal names". Notice the existence of e.g.Category:Latvian transliterations of English names. Names of non-English speakers are not English names. I agree with CodeCat that place names belong to topic categories.--Makaokalani (talk) 14:32, 10 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
Here's the old discussion if anyone wants to read it. - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 15:58, 12 April 2022 (UTC)Reply
Category:en:Place names was deleted by Equinox in 2017-05 because it was empty. Category:Transliteration of personal names (and its language-specific subcategories) were moved to Category:Foreign personal names in 2021-09 with the help of WingerBot. - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 16:14, 12 April 2022 (UTC)Reply
@ExcarnateSojourner There being no opposition here, only support (albeit mostly old support), and no opposition or interest when I brought this up in the BP, let's revise whatever needs to be revised to put (at a minimum) all given names and surnames into subcategories of Category:Names by language, instead of some of them being in subcategories of Category:Names. The split is haphazard and arbitrary; I see the intention — put a name that was given within English in one top-level category and a name transliterating a foreign name in a different top-level category — but in practice that's not maintained, since e.g. Alexandra in the context of discussing ancient Greek is transliterating the Ancient Greek name, Sergei has been given to babies born in the Anglosphere (and to characters in English fiction), and we don't maintain such a split with place names. - -sche (discuss) 16:01, 24 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
It making no sense to have Alexandra (in works about ancient Greece where it's romanizing a Greek name), Alexandra (in fiction about ancient Greece where it's a given name), Alexandra (as borne by British or American people today), Sonya, Vadim and Vladimir divided haphazardly into two different top-level categories, "Names" vs "Names by language", I'm now (attempting) editing the modules to consolidate them into "Names by language" subcategories. - -sche (discuss) 14:37, 5 May 2023 (UTC)Reply
(Assistance solicited at Module talk:names#en:Russian_male_given_names,_etc.) - -sche (discuss) 14:48, 5 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

Recategorize Category:Demonyms and Category:Ethnonyms

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Pinging some editors from the discussion above: @User:Rua, @User:Daniel Carrero

As I explained in the discussion about exonyms above, renaming the language-specific subcategories of cat:Demonyms properly will require removing it from the topic category tree and adding it to the set category tree. We should similarly recategorize cat:Ethnonyms, another child of cat:Names that did not yet exist when this discussion started. I propose recategorizing them into Category:Terms by semantic function subcategories by language, unless someone can find a better place, and renaming them cat:Demonyms by language and cat:Ethnonyms by language. — excarnateSojourner (talk · contrib) 06:55, 25 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

@ExcarnateSojourner @-sche I am going to take a stab at implementing this. Can you help with what the renames should be? I understand the separation between poscat categories and topic categories should be "lexical" vs. "semantic" but I sometimes have trouble putting this into practice. A tentative list based on what's already been proposed:
  1. 'DESTLANGCODE:SOURCELANG male given names' -> 'DESTLANG male given names transliterated from SOURCELANG'; same for 'female given names', 'surnames', etc. This doesn't work; these are not DESTLANG names but SOURCELANG names rendered into DESTLANG. So I propose 'DESTLANG renderings of SOURCELANG male given names' or similar. ("Transliteration" isn't quite right; sometimes these are transliterations, sometimes respellings, sometimes mere borrowings (cf. Italian Clinton).)
  2. 'LANGCODE:Foreign personal names' (a grouping category) -> 'LANG foreign personal names'
  3. 'LANGCODE:Demonyms' -> 'LANG demonyms'
  4. 'LANGCODE:Ethnonyms' -> 'LANG ethnonyms'
  5. 'LANGCODE:Exonyms' -> 'LANG exonyms'
  6. 'LANGCODE:Letter names' -> 'LANG letter names'
  7. 'LANGCODE:Couple nicknames' -> 'LANG couple nicknames'
  8. 'LANGCODE:Named roads' -> 'LANGCODE:Names of roads' and remove from 'LANGCODE:Names'
  9. 'LANGCODE:Named prayers' -> 'LANGCODE:Names of prayers' and remove from 'LANGCODE:Names'
What about the following:
  1. Subcategories of 'LANGCODE:Demonyms':
    1. 'LANGCODE:Armenian demonyms'?
    2. 'LANGCODE:Celestial inhabitants'?
      1. 'LANGCODE:Ufology' -> stays as a topic category.
    3. 'LANGCODE:Latvian demonyms'?
    4. 'LANGCODE:Nationalities'
    5. 'LANGCODE:Tribes'
      1. 'LANGCODE:Celtic tribes'
      2. 'LANGCODE:Germanic tribes'
      3. 'LANGCODE:Native American tribes'
      • See also 'LANGCODE:Mongolian tribes' under 'LANGCODE:Ethnonyms'.
  2. Subcategories of 'LANGCODE:Ethnonyms':
    1. 'LANGCODE:Mongolian tribes' -> Goes wherever 'LANGCODE:Celtic tribes', 'LANGCODE:Germanic tribes' and 'LANGCODE:Native American tribes' go.
  3. 'LANGCODE:Place names' -> Delete and reclassify the terms under them using {{place}} so they end up in 'Places in FOO'.
  4. 'LANGCODE:Places' -> Leave as a topic category but remove 'LANGCODE:Names' as a parent?
  5. Script-specific variants of 'LANGCODE:Letter names': 'LANGCODE:Arabic letter names', 'LANGCODE:Devanagari letter names', 'LANGCODE:Imperial Aramaic letter names', 'LANGCODE:Korean letter names', 'LANGCODE:Latin letter names'?
  6. Subcategories of 'LANGCODE:Nicknames':
    1. 'LANGCODE:Nicknames' itself? This is a grouping category.
    2. 'LANGCODE:Nicknames of individuals'?
    3. 'LANGCODE:City nicknames'?
    4. 'LANGCODE:Country nicknames'?
      1. 'LANGCODE:Racist names for countries' -> Terminate with extreme prejudice, see WT:BP.
    5. 'LANGCODE:Sports nicknames' -> either 'LANGCODE:Sports team nicknames', 'LANGCODE:Nicknames of sports teams', 'LANG sports team nicknames', 'LANG nicknames of sports teams'
      • See also 'LANGCODE:Couple nicknames' above.
  7. 'LANGCODE:Onomastics' -> stays as topic category but should not have 'LANGCODE:Names' as one of its parents.
  8. 'LANGCODE:Language families'? Regardless, it should not have 'LANGCODE:Names' as one of its parents.
  9. 'LANGCODE:Languages'? Regardless, it should not have 'LANGCODE:Names' as one of its parents.
  10. 'LANGCODE:Taxonomic names' and subcategories:
    1. 'LANGCODE:Taxonomic names' itself?
    2. 'Taxonomic eponyms by language': Already a pos category.
    3. 'Specific epithets' -> 'Translingual specific epithets'?
Other topic categories not directly reachable through 'LANGCODE:Names' but needing consideration:
  1. 'LANGCODE:Ships (fandom)' and numerous subcategories ('LANGCODE:F/F ships (fandom)', 'LANGCODE:M/M ships (fandom)', 'LANGCODE:Heterosexual ships (fandom)', 'LANGCODE:Homosexual ships (fandom)', 'LANGCODE:Polyamorous ships (fandom)', 'LANGCODE:RPF ships (fandom)'
  2. 'LANGCODE:Horse given names'
Benwing2 (talk) 07:14, 31 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
@-sche Wondering if you missed my ping. I know my post is long, so take your time in responding. Benwing2 (talk) 06:36, 4 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
Sorry, didn't mean to ignore your ping, but got distracted by life after seeing it. As far as the categories for "English renderings of Ukrainian names" (or whatever), I have no strong preference for any particular name at this time. My immediate concern was just with addressing the odd point of bifurcation where "native English placename like Warwick or Alberta; English rendering of an Armenian placename like Stepanakert; English rendering of a personal name someone gave a baby born in Ukraine like Volodymyr" are in one top-level category system ("LANGCODE:Names", named like 'set' categories), and "personal name someone gave a baby born in Canada" is in a different top-level category system ("LANGNAME names", treated like a quasi-part of speech). It's hard to decide where exactly to split the spectrum of categories we're dealing with here, if we're wanting to keep e.g. "John" in "Category:English male given names" at that (part-of-speech-esque) category name, but wanting to consider some things like Category:en:Native American tribes to be clearly a set/list category (a set/list of tribes); my immediate point was just that I don't see a sound basis for considering "John, Jane" a POS-type (LANGNAME) category but "Volodymyr, Sergei" a LANGCODE:-set-type category — surely they're both one or both the other, and the greater momentum seems to be towards considering "names" a POS-type/LANGNAME category. But maybe we should think about that more carefully and consider them all to be "sets"? (But then, "Category:English verbs" is also just a category containing the set of English verbs. Hmm... should we perhaps allow only things that are truly "parts of speech" to have "Category:LANGNAME foobars" names, and make all the "names" categories that contain John and Volodymyr into set categories? Should that be the direction in which we eliminate the bifurcation of the 'John' vs 'Volodymyr' categories?)
I do think even keeping names in two subcategories like "English given names" vs "English renderings of Ukrainian names"/"English renderings of Chinese names"/etc [whatever we call those categories] based on, in effect, whether they were born in Ukraine vs to a Ukrainian family in Canada (or in China vs to a Chinese family in America) may be less than ideal; e.g. what do we do if a transliterated Ukrainian or Chinese name is common in English-language fiction? What about if it's a German name; does the fact that those names are "natively" Latin script make the threshold for considering them to have become "English names" lower? Does it make a difference if the fiction is set in lightly-fictionalized Germany or Ukraine or China, vs in a space future or a generic medievalesque Middle Earth / Westeros? But I don't have time to think through and suggest any proposal for any better approach to that yet.
"LANG foreign personal names" (e.g. "English foreign personal names") sounds a bit odd; would "LANG renderings of foreign personal names" (aligning with your proposed "DESTLANG renderings of SOURCELANG male given names") be better, iff we're sticking with moving "Names" categories to LANGNAME names and not LANGCODE names?
I will try to respond more, and to the rest, later. - -sche (discuss) 17:54, 4 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
@-sche Thanks for your comments. I have no issue with "LANG renderings of foreign personal names". I see your point about the line between nativized foreign-origin names and renderings of actual foreign names being fuzzy, but there does feel to me like a distinction, esp. in languages like Latvian that tend to respell foreign names according to Latvian spelling conventions, and the distinction is fairly clearly made in reality between e.g. the large number of Russian names respelled according to Latvian conventions (and used e.g. by the large population of Russians in Latvia) vs. the smaller number of Russian-origin names that have become nativized for naming of ethnic Latvians. In a multi-ethnic society like the US or Canada where nationality and ethnicity aren't always clearly distinguished, things get a lot fuzzier, although it still feels like there's some sort of distinction between names like Volodymyr or Volha that are unlikely to be borne by anyone other than someone who is Ukrainian (resp. Belarusian) or whose parents or grandparents are Ukrainian (resp. Belarusian), vs. a name like Vladimir or Olga that might be given to someone with no particular connection to Russia. As for whether these should use LANGNAME-type or LANGCODE-type naming, I'm not sure although I gather the distinction is supposed to be lexical vs. semantic, if that helps at all. Benwing2 (talk) 23:57, 4 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
I guess we should stick with LANGNAME naming for given names / surnames, then, at least for now. (Switching gears for a moment to address a different aspect:) Regarding "horse given names", we also have (but apparently don't currently categorize) dog given names likes Scruffy, Fido, and Spot, and we have Polly as a name for a parrot, and Mittens, Kitty, Socks for cats (also e.g. Miming in Cebuano). Perhaps we should merge all the different animals into one category for "animal given names". To me, at least, it seems intuitive to then handle this category in whatever way we handle the human given name categories—so, if we're naming the category that contains 'John' "English male given names", then 'Fido' goes in "English animal given names", or if we're using language codes, then use codes for both. (Back to the first gear:) We also have names that belong to specific individual people (Confucius, Cicero) or animals (Laika, and mythically Cerberus, Garm); we seem to put these in LANGCODE-set categories; I suppose the rationale is that the category that contains "Confucius, Cicero" contains a set of individuals, whereas "John" and "Jane" are 'less restricted'... in practice, people have undoubtedly also named babies 'Confucius' and 'Cicero', but if we demonstrate that, then we add a {{given name}} sense, so I guess we're fine leaving the individuals in LANGCODE-set categories and the {{given name}}s in LANGNAME categories... I guess this also explains the difference between nicknames (LANGNAME nicknames) and relationship names (the category contains a set of specific ships)...? nevermind, "Category:Nicknames" doesn't contain what I would've expected ("Bob, Jim, Tom" for Robert, James, Thomas) - -sche (discuss) 18:45, 5 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
@-sche This all sounds good to me. I think I'll start on the renames in a couple of days depending on how the comments go. Benwing2 (talk) 21:45, 5 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
Just checking, when your "list based on what's already been proposed" includes "'LANGCODE:Demonyms' -> 'LANG demonyms'" but then your follow-up proposal is for Subcategories of 'LANGCODE:Demonyms': like 'LANGCODE:Armenian demonyms'?, you're proposing to not actually rename "'LANGCODE:Demonyms' -> 'LANG demonyms'", right? I'm just checking that we're going to handle "Demonyms" and the subcategories like "Armenian demonyms" the same way, either all using LANGCODEs or all using LANGNAME. I could see handling the categories that actually have the word "demonyms" in their name either way, but since some of the other subcategories like "LANGCODE:Native American tribes" do seem more like set categories, maybe it's best to consider the whole batch to be set categories and stick with LANGCODE names like they have at present? (But maybe move them out of the "Names" category?)
"Couple nicknames" is an interesting case, because intuitively it seems like those and (relation)ship names should be handled the same way, since they seem like the exact same thing: "Lumity" is the portmanteau name for the two specific individuals Luz Noceda and Amity Blight, and Billary is the portmanteau name for the two specific individuals Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton... maybe LANGCODE:Couple nicknames should be renamed "LANGCODE:Couples" to be more clearly a set category? and moved out from under the "names" category, since we don't categorize ship names as "names"? - -sche (discuss) 02:34, 6 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
@-sche Thanks for pointing out that inconsistency. Rua's point awhile ago was that 'Native American tribes' is named correctly as a set category because the contents are "names of Native American tribes" but 'Armenian demonyms' isn't named correctly as the contents aren't "names of Armenian demonyms". Rua suggested renaming 'Demonyms' -> 'Peoples' although that seems a bit strange to me as the term 'demonym' is fairly well established, and furthermore a distinction could be made between nominal demonyms and adjectival demonyms (note, we have {{demonym-noun}} and {{demonym-adj}} for these two, respectively), which is clearly a lexical distinction. That suggests maybe they should all be considered lexical categories, esp. since I think something like Category:en:Exonyms doesn't make sense as a set category (being an exonym is completely a lexical property. If we are to make Category:en:Armenian demonyms a lexical category, IMO it should be Category:English demonyms for Armenians as Category:English Armenian demonyms doesn't make much sense. As for CAT:en:Couples, that seems ambiguous so maybe it should be CAT:en:Nicknames of couples or something (which would be keeping with future names like CAT:Types of stars and such). Benwing2 (talk) 02:54, 6 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
"CAT:en:Nicknames of couples" works. Or should it even be "Nicknames of pairs", since it currently contains a few things like Bushbama {{subst:dash}} or should we remove those? (We don't categorize e.g. Republicrat as anything but "US politics".)
Good point about exonyms. "Demonyms", or at least the things currently in the "Demonyms" categories, seem to straddle the line between being a set category like "Occupations", vs being lexical like "Exonyms"... ugh, as you said earlier, it's hard to pin down and "put into practice" the difference, since so many of these categories exist in a grey area with characteristics of both. Like: it would not technically be wrong AFAICT to say "Category:English male given names and Category:English nouns are set categories containing the set of all English male given names or nouns respectively" (it would just be madness, heh). And in the other direction, isn't being a placename as much a lexical property as being a given name? But should they go into the same top-level "LANGNAME names" category, or is that madness?
Thinking aloud for a moment, I guess one difference is whether a term refers to one specific entity, or to an open-ended cast, which would rationalize why "John" and "Bob"—as names that can be given to an open-ended variety of people, new babies every day—are in (or belong in, in the case of "Volodymyr") "LANGNAME names" categories, whereas "Baghdad Bob" (individual's nickname), "Billary" and "Lumity" (real and fictional couples' nicknames) and e.g. "Saskatchewan" and "Yerevan" (placenames) refer to specific entities, and so are LANGCODE set categories...? So then, since demonyms like "Saskatchewanian" and "Yerevanian" also refer to an open-ended set of people (new babies born in Saskatchewan every day), and as you say, 'being a demonym' can be argued to be a lexical property like 'being an exonym', that justifies them being "LANGNAME demonyms" categories...? (Then the "type of"-set categories, like the category for "the set of all types of stars" or "the set of Native American tribes", are LANGCODE-set categories for a different reason.) - -sche (discuss) 19:04, 6 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
@-sche Yes, that seems to make a lot of sense. BTW I have written the script to move topic (langcode) categories to lexical (langname) categories and I'm probably going to run it on exonyms first. Benwing2 (talk) 19:59, 6 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
@-sche I have moved the exonyms and foreign-personal-names categories. Benwing2 (talk) 03:30, 7 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • @Benwing2 Sorry for being absent here. I'm glad to see discussion happening and generally support your proposals. A few specific comments:
8. 'LANGCODE:Named roads': Why not 'LANGCODE:Roads' (and remove from 'LANGCODE:Names')?
9. 'LANGCODE:Named prayers': Why not 'LANGCODE:Prayers' (and remove from 'LANGCODE:Names')?
5. Regarding letter names, see also cat:Letters.
— excarnateSojourner (talk · contrib) 21:18, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
@ExcarnateSojourner The main reason for including the word "named" is that otherwise it might not be clear whether the categories are set-type or related-to categories. Benwing2 (talk) 00:57, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
Relevant to the discussion above about creating a general animal given names category, this discussion points out "Ralph" for a raven, as well as "Rover" as another dog name. Whenever the situation with human names is sorted out, I suggest moving "LANGCODE:Horse given names" ("is:Horse given names") to "LANGNAME animal given names" ("Icelandic animal given names"), unless anyone has objections... (or we could add a general "animal given names" category and retain subcategories for specific animals if one or more languages had a lot of names for them, as might be the case for dogs and horses...) - -sche (discuss) 17:24, 11 November 2023 (UTC)Reply

2016

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Category:Kangxi radicals

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Latest comment: 2 years ago13 comments7 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

Redundant to Category:Kangxi Radicals block. Has a table that might be worth keeping. —suzukaze (t・c) 07:39, 25 September 2016 (UTC)Reply

Category:CJKV radicals

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Redundant to Category:Han character radicals. —suzukaze (t・c) 07:39, 25 September 2016 (UTC)Reply

Category:Han rad sup

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Redundant to Category:CJK Radicals Supplement block. Also it has a terrible name. Has a table that might be worth keeping. —suzukaze (t・c) 07:39, 25 September 2016 (UTC)Reply

Keep - not in itself a rational for deletion. also yourself: is the category useful? does it fit into a schema of categorisation? is it likely that we are goingto have things to vategorise into it, inm the future? if the answer to anty ofthese is "yes", then we should keep it, rather than have to repeat the work later. respectfully, Lx 121 (talk) 10:55, 29 April 2019 (UTC)Reply

Delete all - the first one is more dubious than the rest though, as Kangxi Radicals block is just a Unicode block category. If the contents are the same though, there's little point in keeping them separate. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 18:46, 19 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

Okay:

This, that and the other (talk) 11:44, 26 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Justinrleung since you are commenting elsewhere on this page, I wonder if you can advise how to proceed with the remaining component of this ancient RFDO request? This, that and the other (talk) 09:11, 27 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
@This, that and the other: Entries seem to be automatically categorized into CAT:Han character radicals by {{Han char}}. I'm not exactly sure what the exact mechanism is. @Fish bowl, I'm wondering if you know. Some of the so-called radicals in CAT:CJKV radicals seem to not be Kangxi radicals but Shuowen radicals, like 共, so these would not be automatically categorized by CAT:Han character radicals. I do think that there should probably only one category for radicals, and I think CAT:Han character radicals is probably better as a name since Han characters are not exclusive to the four languages of CJKV. But we'll have to see if these radicals in CAT:CJKV radicals only should just be moved to CAT:Han character radicals manually or with changes to {{Han char}}. — justin(r)leung { (t...) | c=› } 16:23, 27 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
@Fish bowl we are waiting for your input here. Could you please state whether you agree with Justin's proposal to merge all of the radical entries in both categories to Cat:Han character radicals and delete Cat:CJKV radicals? This, that and the other (talk) 23:23, 22 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
The mechanism is categorization if there are 0 residual strokes (Module:zh-han#L-125).
Whatever the difference between Category:Han character radicals and Category:CJKV radicals is, it's a poor one as the names are essentially equivalent. —Fish bowl (talk) 06:16, 24 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
I agree - let's merge them into Han character radicals. Theknightwho (talk) 09:51, 7 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
So the entries requiring manual review are those only in CJKV radicals. It appears to me, as a CJK outsider, that many of these are essentially alternative forms of radicals. Many of these have corresponding radical appendices, and many of them have the residual strokes parameter set to "00", which I assume is meant to do something magical.
This, that and the other (talk) 22:38, 7 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
@This, that and the other It's a really badly-named category. It's added by {{ja-kanji}} if grade=r is manually set, which is (a) not what that parameter is supposed to be for, and (b) clearly not something that should be controlled by a Japanese template. I suspect this is a holdover from the very early days of Wiktonary.
The entire kanji grade system is something that's already handled via the back-end anyway and shouldn't have any kind of manual override since it's all strictly defined.
The reason the residual strokes parameter is set to 0 is because residual strokes are defined by reference to a character's radical (e.g. it's radical X + 3 additional strokes). This is useful for sorting purposes, as the radical is used as the primary sorting weight, with the residual strokes being used for fine-tuning within that. Naturally, characters which are themselves radicals have 0 additional strokes. Theknightwho (talk) 15:49, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

2017

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Category:Reference templates

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Latest comment: 8 months ago24 comments12 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

These should be placed in the appropriate language-specific categories. —CodeCat 15:24, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Yes, but the category shouldn't be deleted, as the lang-specific catgs should be kept here. Perhaps rename Cat:Reference templates by language if necessary. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:54, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Never mind, I didn't realize that's already a separate catg. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:55, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
I presume that such templates are categorized by the target language, not the language in which they are written. Do we not care about the language in which the reference is written? What about a multilingual dictionary? (There are at least two such templates.) DCDuring TALK 16:15, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
They're placed in whichever language they're relevant to as a reference. So the language it's written in is not taken into account, but they can be placed into more than one language category. —CodeCat 16:21, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Shouldn't this category be kept as a parent category for "Category:Reference templates by language"? Also, there may be translingual templates such as {{R:Reference-meta}} which I have been working on. — SMUconlaw (talk) 18:44, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Why should Category:Reference templates by language be placed in this category? It already has its own parent category. And translingual reference templates naturally go in Category:Translingual reference templates. —CodeCat 18:51, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, I didn't know "Category:Translingual reference templates" existed. However, isn't it usually the case that when there is a category in the form "X by Y", "X" exists as a parent category as well? At least that's what happens at the Wikimedia Commons. — SMUconlaw (talk) 18:59, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
Not on Wiktionary. I can't imagine Category:Nouns being very useful as a parent of Category:Nouns by language. —CodeCat 19:01, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ In that case, delete according to the reason provided by the nominator. — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:12, 23 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Could some people help with clearing it out? —CodeCat 14:05, 26 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

@CodeCat: I'll do some work on it. — Eru·tuon 21:46, 26 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
When it's deleted, where shall we put Category:Quotation reference templates? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:50, 27 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
What about the templates not in another category, like Template:R:Wordorigins.org! Will they become orphant-templates upon deletion of Category:Reference templates? Thx, B Lemeukx (talk) 11:56, 21 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Keep - obviously useful as a meta-category. Lx 121 (talk) 14:19, 29 April 2019 (UTC)Reply

You haven't read the discussion. There are currently two such categories. —Rua (mew) 14:20, 29 April 2019 (UTC)Reply
I've seen both categories, & they seem to serve different purposes. this one is general-purpose (any template related to references), & the other one Wiktionary: Reference templates seems to be narrowly-defined (a list of dictionary-reference templates). So either merge or differentiate them better? & 'Reference Templates' is still the obvious meta-category for ALL reference templates. Lx 121 (talk) 15:28, 29 April 2019 (UTC)Reply
After some more cleanup, the category now has only six members. —Rua (mew) 16:25, 30 April 2019 (UTC)Reply
Keep, a useful umbrella category for reference templates that don't pertain to any language, and the two subcats within it. I infer from the continued presence of the 7 templates in the cat that nobody has been able to find a better home for them, presumably because they're not related to languages at all, so don't even belong in Translingual reference templates. This, that and the other (talk) 00:37, 17 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Categories about country subdivisions to include the country name

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Latest comment: 2 years ago11 comments5 people in discussion

This will include at least the following:

Categories for certain things that are located within these subdivisions will also be named, e.g. Category:Cities in Aomori (Prefecture) → Category:Cities in Aomori Prefecture, Japan. —Rua (mew) 13:07, 16 October 2017 (UTC)Reply

Support. I oppose the existence of categories with language code like "en:" in the first place, but what is proposed here seems to be an improvement over the status quo. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 20:27, 20 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I would have opposed a lot of these, but I was too late on the scene. DonnanZ (talk) 15:51, 12 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

The rename has been put on hold until there is a clear consensus either way. Please vote! —Rua (mew) 15:11, 14 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Rua It looks sane to me if politics are let out. But why is Abkhazia in Georgia though it is an independent state, statehood only depending on factual prerequisites and not on diplomatic recognition which has nothing to do with it? Where does the Crimea belong to? (article Sevastopol is only in Category:en:Ukraine because it has not really been edited since 2014.) I can think of two solutions: First possibility: We focus on geographical and cultural constants. Second possibility: We focus on the actual political power. I disprefer the second slightly because it can mean much work in cases of war (i.e. how much the Islamic state holds etc., or say the current factions in Libya). But in neither case Abkhazia is in Georgia. But the first possibility does not even answer what the Crimea belongs to, i.e. I am not sure if it is historically correct to speak of the Crimea as Ukraine. And geographical terms are often fuzzy and subject to editorial decisions. All seems so easy if you start your concepts from the United States, which do not even have a name for the region they are situated in. And even for the USA your idea is questionable because the constituent states of the United States are states in their own right (Teilstaat, Gliedstaat in German), as is also the case for the Federal Republic of Germany and the Russian Federation partially (according to the Russian constitution only those of the 85 subjects are states which are called Republic, not the Oblasti etc.). Is Tatarstan Russia? Not even Russians can agree with such a sentence, as in Russia one sharply distinguishs русские and россияне, Россия and Российская федерация. Technically Ceuta and Melilla are in Morocco because Spain is not in Africa. Also, Kosovo je Srbija, and it would become just a coincidence if a place important in Serbian history is listed as X, Kosovo or X, Serbia. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 16:06, 14 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Rua: Most of these categories like Category:en:Special wards in Tokyo are back on the {{delete}} list. I think these should be removed again for the time being. DonnanZ (talk) 18:02, 14 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

  • Starting with the above, I don't know how the Tokyo ward system works, but I imagine it's a subdivision of the city. In England wards are subdivisions in cities, boroughs, local government districts, and possibly counties. "Wards in" is the natural usage.
Municipalities similarly. For example in Norway there are hundreds of municipalities (kommuner) which are subdivisions within counties (fylker). Some of these can be large, especially in the north, but so are the counties in the north. To me "municipalities in" is the natural wording.
States and provinces in the USA and Canada: In nearly all cases it is unnecessary to add the country name as the names are unambiguous. The only exception I can think of is Georgia, USA. This could also apply to prefectures in Japan and states in India (is there a Punjab in Pakistan?). DonnanZ (talk) 18:52, 14 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Yes, there is, like there is in India. Maybe categorisations should be abundant? Cities can belong to Punjab as well as to Punjab, India, and the Crimea is part of administration of both the Russian Federation and the Republic Ukraine at least for some purposes in the Republic Ukraine. We can make the least thing wrong by adding Sheikh Zuweid (presuming it exists) as well to the Islamic State as to the Arab Republic of Egypt, because we do not want to judge morally and formally states and terror organizations are indistinguishable. On the other hand of course we need sufficient data to relate towns to administrative divisions and ISIS presumably does not publish organigrams. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 19:44, 14 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

2018

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Category:English words ending in "-gry"

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Latest comment: 2 years ago11 comments6 people in discussion

This is extremely trivial, not to mention something that could be found even if it were not categorised. I think that it suits an appendix much better, so I propose that its contents be moved to Appendix:English words ending in -gry. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 03:23, 15 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

A benefit to having it as a category is that theoretically it ought to be addable by the headword templates examining the pagename (like "English terms spelled with Œ"), which, if implemented (...if it could be implemented without excessive memory costs), would allow it to be kept up to date automatically. - -sche (discuss) 17:16, 15 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
That is true, but I don't really think we should be using headword templates to collate trivia. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 17:47, 15 March 2018 (UTC)Reply
Delete per proponent. --Per utramque cavernam 18:09, 31 May 2018 (UTC)Reply
Is there something like Category:English lemmas but sorted from the end, like anger, ranger, hunger, angry, hungry? --幽霊四 (talk) 19:40, 6 February 2021 (UTC)Reply
At http://tools.wmflabs.org/dixtosa/ you can get a list of all entries in any category that end with any string you like. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:58, 6 February 2021 (UTC)Reply
Support the proposed move per nom. - excarnateSojourner (talk|contrib) 05:00, 29 October 2021 (UTC)Reply
Meh. Mehhhhhh. On one hand, I still like the idea of a category which can be populated automatically any time a new relevant entry is added. OTOH, it's very trivial. Well, it would be simple for someone to copy the current contents of the category over to the appendix and then remove the category from the entries (maybe with AWB to speed things up). - -sche (discuss) 09:04, 28 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
Compare Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion/Others#Category:German_words_ending_in_-nf. If that gets kept, we should probably comparably keep this. - -sche (discuss) 19:24, 10 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
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Latest comment: 2 years ago7 comments6 people in discussion

After some discussion on Category talk:Baybayin script (that went a bit off-topic), some of the Indian language editors (@Bhagadatta, Msasag and myself) have agreed that this category should be renamed to Category:Eastern Nagari script, the reasons being (1) several languages other than Bengali use this script, and (2) the Bengali alphabet is just a subset of this script and lacks some of the glyphs used by other Bengali-script languages (most prominently Assamese which has a separate r-glyph). I want to make sure that there are no objections to this by editors who were not in the discussion. —AryamanA (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान) 02:06, 20 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

google:assamese+site:unicode.org —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 02:16, 20 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Asm sultan, Dubomanab Kutchkutch (talk) 05:35, 21 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

 Support -- Bhagadatta (talk) 08:38, 21 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Category:Japanese kanji by goon reading → Category:Japanese kanji by go-on reading

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Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

It’s not about goon but go-on. Most books on Japanese seem to use kan-on and go-on with a hyphen rather than the correctly Romanized kan’on and goon. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 15:42, 22 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

Category:Korean determiners → Category:Korean adnominals

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Latest comment: 4 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion

I propose to rename Category:Korean determiners to Category:Korean adnominals, just like Category:Japanese adnominals. Korean gwanhyeongsa are grammatically almost identical to Japanese rentaishi or adnominals, which may or may not be determiners. Gwanhyeongsa are generally divided into three classes: demonstrative gwanhyeongsa, numeral gwanhyeongsa, and qualifying gwanhyeongsa ([1]). The last ones are not determiners. (pinging @Atitarev, Eirikr, Garam, HappyMidnight, KoreanQuoter) — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 23:31, 10 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

Support. --Garam (talk) 08:21, 12 October 2018 (UTC)Reply
Tentatively Support. Let's check with User:Wyang who was also involved and had an opinion in a related discussion on the group of words ending in 적 (的, jeok). --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 02:42, 13 October 2018 (UTC)Reply
I feel determiner is the more common name for this in English; the different definitions of these terms across languages should not be a concern - e.g. we also use adjective differently for Korean. adnominal may be confused with the -eun, -neun, -eul, -deon forms of Korean verbs and adjectives. Wyang (talk) 03:57, 13 October 2018 (UTC)Reply
@Wyang: The problem is that Category:Korean determiners contains words other than determiners. It will be all right to have both Category:Korean adnominals and Category:Korean determiners without renaming if you want, just like Category:Japanese adnominals and Category:Japanese determiners. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 10:31, 13 October 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Tibidibi, AG202 —Fish bowl (talk) 11:32, 7 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

2019

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Reconcile Category:#### terms derived from the shape of letters and Category:#### terms making reference to character shapes

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Latest comment: 4 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

See also Category talk:Terms making reference to character shapes by language.

Perhaps they could be merged, or perhaps both could be kept (Japanese: characters; letters?), but the naming should be consistent, at the least. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 11:08, 20 January 2019 (UTC)Reply

Merge, perhaps into Category:Terms derived from character shapes by language (a bit shorter, and inclusive of non-letter characters). - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 04:50, 28 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

Category:Deverbals by language, Category:Denominal verbs by language

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Latest comment: 2 years ago12 comments6 people in discussion

Seems to be inconsistently integrated in so far as the latter in its name contains “verbs” but the former does not contain “noun”, and the latter gets categorized as Category:Lemmas subcategories by language but the former as Category:Terms by etymology subcategories by language. Outside the category structure we have Category:Taos deverbal nouns which nobody has noticed. I have no tendency towards any gestalt so far, and I can’t decide either. Furthermore somebody will have to make a complement {{denominal}} for {{deverbal}} – so far there is only an Arabic-specific {{ar-denominal verb}}. Fay Freak (talk) 18:31, 25 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

A lot of this is redundant to our suffix derivation categories. In many cases, the suffix used already determines what something is derived from. For example, -ness always forms deadjectival nouns, it can't really be anything else. —Rua (mew) 18:47, 25 February 2019 (UTC)Reply
Please see Wiktionary:Etymology_scriptorium/2018/May#основать. Per utramque cavernam 19:13, 25 February 2019 (UTC)Reply
True, for “a lot”, and if you know the deep intricacies of Wiktionary’s category structure.
Category:Russian deverbals that contains now 53 entries has only entries the etymology of which consists in just removing the verb ending and using the stem. I see we have for this case Category:Russian words suffixed with -∅ – we just need to implement something like Category:Latin words suffixed with -o that is split by purpose of the suffix, Category:Latin words suffixed with -o (denominative), Category:Latin words suffixed with -o (compound verb) and so on, which is bare laudable. Now you only need to tell people, @Rua, how to create this id stuff, for to me it is a secret thus far.
However this does not work with non-catenative morphology thus far – you may link the previous discussions on those infix categorization matters here, but even if that pattern collecting is solved the derived terms listed at صَلِيب (ṣalīb, “cross”), for instance, would only be categorized by pattern but nothing would imply that the terms are denominal –, and the point I have made about the categorization and naming of these categories is still there. But I give you green light in any case, if you want to replace all those “[language] deverbals” and “[language] denominal verbs” categorizations by suffigation categories of the format “[language] words suffixed with -∅ [deverbal]”, as well if it concerns action towards categorization of noncatenative morphology language terms, since your idea of uniformity is correct. Fay Freak (talk) 19:49, 25 February 2019 (UTC)Reply
Nonconcatenative morphology is still an underexplored part of Wiktionary, which is kind of annoying. But quite often, we simply show the concatenative part as the affix, and then leave a usage note saying what other changes occur when this form of derivation is used. For example on Northern Sami -i and -hit. —Rua (mew) 20:40, 25 February 2019 (UTC)Reply
How to create an affix category with an id: add the id to the definition line in the affix's entry with {{senseid|language code|id}}, add {{affix|language code|affix|id1=id}} (at minimum) to the etymology section of a term that uses the affix, find the resulting red-linked category and create it with {{auto cat}}. — Eru·tuon 20:51, 25 February 2019 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, this is easier than I imagined, so it takes the category name from {{senseid}}. I thought it is in some background module data. Now where to document it? Add it to the documentation of {{affix}} under |idN=? This is the main or even only use of this parameter in this template, right? Fay Freak (talk) 21:18, 25 February 2019 (UTC)Reply
It's not that {{senseid}} has any effect on the category name, but that a category with a parenthesis after it, such as Latin words suffixed with -tus (action noun), expects a matching {{senseid}} in the entry for -tus, in this case {{senseid|la|action noun}} because the link in the category description points to -tus#Latin-action_noun, which is the format of the anchor created by {{senseid}}. The |id= type parameters, including in {{affix}}, generally create a link of that type. In {{affix}}, the parameter also has the effect of changing the category name. Sorry, I am not sure if I am explaining this clearly. — Eru·tuon 22:36, 25 February 2019 (UTC)Reply
You explain this clearly. I just rolled it up from that side that I need to choose the name in {{senseid}} that I want to have in the category name so later with affix I will categorize in a reasonably named category because in other cases the id can arbitrary – not that {{senseid}} has an effect on the category name. Fay Freak (talk) 22:53, 25 February 2019 (UTC)Reply
Our affix system is not sufficient to handle morphological derivation we have to deal with (unless you want us to introduce lambdas...) Serbo-Croatian hardly has the intricacy of Arabic conjugation, but there are plenty of nouns that are created from verbal roots through apophony, and this needs to be categorized somehow. Crom daba (talk) 17:24, 2 March 2019 (UTC)Reply
@Crom daba At least for Indo-European, we do have a system for handling combinations of affixation + ablaut, like on *-os (notice the parentheses showing the root grade) and -ος (-os). Our current system totally fails where there is no affix, though, a case which also exists in Indo-European. For example, there are some Indo-European forms of derivation, called "internal derivation", which are built entirely around changing ablaut grades and accents: *krótus (“strength”) > *krétus (“strong”) or τόμος (tómos, “slice”) > τομός (tomós, “sharp”). We have no systematic way to indicate this kind of derivation, but it is sorely needed. —Rua (mew) 23:42, 30 April 2019 (UTC)Reply

Category:Translingual numerals or Category:Translingual numeral symbols

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Latest comment: 1 year ago5 comments3 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO#Category:Translingual numerals or Category:Translingual numeral symbols.

We currently have both Category:Translingual numerals and Category:Translingual numeral symbols. If there's a difference, I'm not sure what it is. If not, I'm assuming we should merge on into the other. -- Beland (talk) 21:22, 26 April 2019 (UTC)Reply

Numerals can be words (one, two in spelling alphabets), while numeral symbols are not (Roman numerals). The difference is subtle, but I think it is there. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 18:51, 19 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

Category:English oxymorons to Category:English contradictions in terms

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Latest comment: 1 year ago4 comments3 people in discussion

We say ourselves in the entry for oxymoron that its use to mean "contradiction in terms" is loose and sometimes proscribed (despite the fact that many people use it this way nowadays). We say much the same thing at contradiction in terms as well.

The so-called oxymorons in this category are all or almost all contradictions in terms, where the contradiction is accidental or comes about only by interpreting the component words in a different way from their actual meanings in the phrase. An oxymoron in the strict sense has an intentional contradiction. I think we should be more precise about this, in the same way as we already are with using the term "blend" instead of "portmanteau", which has a narrower meaning. I therefore suggest we move this page to "Category:English contradictions in terms" (but see my second comment below). Likewise for any corresponding categories for other languages. — Paul G (talk) 06:51, 25 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

On second thoughts, I think this category should be retained but restricted to true oxymorons, such as "bittersweet" and "deafening silence". Ones such as "man-child" and "pianoforte" are not intended to be oxymoronic and are only accidentally contradictions in terms. — Paul G (talk) 17:18, 26 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

Support. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:30, 27 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

April 2020

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Category:Languages of California

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Latest comment: 1 year ago25 comments13 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

I don't think we need to be any level lower than countries... Ultimateria (talk) 02:37, 13 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

California at one time probably had about a hundred indigenous languages and represented the intersection of the Algic languages (which extend to the east coast), the Athabascan languages (which extend from Alaska to northern Mexico), the Uto-Aztecan languages, (which extend to Central America), a few still-to-be-proven language families like Hokan and Penutian, and a few probable isolates like the Chimariko language and the Karuk language, with a very high percentage endemic to the state. Right now the category contains only one language which was added by a clueless editor based on a bogus etymology, but we already have hundreds of entries in upwards of 5 dozen indigenous languages- about a fifth of Category:Languages of the United States. I should also mention that we have Category:Languages of Hawaii, among others. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:04, 13 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
Make that over a thousand lemmas. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:26, 13 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
I've now added 58 indigenous languages to the category, which I will, of course, remove if we decide to delete. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:20, 13 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
What about nonindigenous languages? Besides English and Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Tagalog are all widely spoken in California. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:16, 13 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
Yes, and I've been to stores with signs in Arabic, Armenian, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Persian, Russian and Thai, and I've met people from Greek, Malagasy, Samoan and Tongan communities as well. The Los Angeles County election websites can be viewed in Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Hindi, Khmer, Korean, Vietnamese and Thai, and American Sign Language interpreters are in considerable demand. I understand that we have lots of people speaking American Indian languages from the rest of the US and from other parts of the Americas. I've even heard of a radio station somewhere in the Central Valley broadcasting in Assyrian Aramaic. I should add that I know there are lots of people speaking other South Asian languages than Hindi and other Chinese languages than Mandarin, but I don't know which ones. Chuck Entz (talk) 10:16, 13 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
So how do we decide what to include and what not to? And really, that question applies not only to this category but also to country-level categories like CAT:Languages of the United States. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:51, 13 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
I don't know, but I disagree with categorizing Category:American Sign Language into Languages of California. ASL is used in all 50 states. I don't think it needs to be in potentially 51 location categories when 1 covers that same information. Leave the demographic specifics to Wikipedia. Ultimateria (talk) 01:41, 16 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
English and Spanish are spoken in all 50 states too. And they're spoken in other countries as well; does that mean they shouldn't be in CAT:Languages of the United States? —Mahāgaja · talk 05:47, 16 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
That's what I'm arguing for, rather than put e.g. Spanish in 300 categories for all the states of the US and South American countries. Ultimateria (talk) 16:21, 17 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
Delete because it is ambiguous. If we talk about native languages we go also beyond the current state borders and might think about the California of the now United Mexican States. Fay Freak (talk) 15:14, 13 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
Deletion for the reason given immediately above is completely inappropriate. The rationale would suggest renaming. "Early languages...", "Pre-Columbian languages..." might work for the instant case.
We use current governmental borders for categories such as this because of the administrative processes that govern almost all the research on such matters and because that is how most of our users would approach the subject matter. California may secede after the coming election so it would seem prudent to wait before any rash deletion or renaming. DCDuring (talk) 17:13, 13 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
California might secede? Even then there is still a different California. I am not sure that we use governmental borders. Many who use these categories think that. Fay Freak (talk) 20:58, 13 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
That's Baja California, not California. Don't conflate etymology with meaning. Theknightwho (talk) 09:27, 30 August 2022 (UTC)Reply
Keep per Chuck Entz as it's important to have the indigenous languages there. AG202 (talk) 01:36, 14 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Keep: It is so well populated now that it is not overly precise. — excarnateSojourner (talk · contrib) 06:03, 16 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Keep because it seems useful to have a category of indigenous languages. That said, I'm not sure about cases like Mandarin, Tagalog, Korean, and Vietnamese, all currently in the category. Worth noting that neither English or Spanish currently are in the category, and they undoubtedly have the most speakers. I can see a case for including these non-indigenous languages, but if we were to admit any language that has a community of speakers in California then the category would probably stop being useful, even though I suspect there may be more speakers of Icelandic in California than of Valley Yokuts. Not sure where the line should be. There might be a case for only including languages that are (semi-)unique to California, which would probably limit the category to indigenous languages. There might also be a case for having separate categories for indigenous and non-indigenous. Or we could just hope that having all indigenous languages + maybe the top ten non-indigenous is a sane heuristic and hope nobody decides to add Icelandic. (This issue is not by any means unique to California, and I'm not sure whether there's a general rule that's been agreed upon.) 70.172.194.25 06:57, 16 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
    Maybe the rule should be indigenous to California OR speakers per capita in California >> speakers per capita in US, which would exclude English but plausibly include those Asian languages. There may still be some disagreement about what ">>" means, however, as I assume Spanish is spoken at a greater rate per capita in California than in the US as a whole, but it seems weird to include Spanish but not English. I don't have a fully satisfactory answer. 70.172.194.25 07:10, 16 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
Rename to Cat:Indigenous languages of California etc and remove the non-indigenous (post-European colonisation) languages. That would make for a more meaningful category per the IP above. I see no value in categorising colonial and migrant languages by state, province, etc. This, that and the other (talk) 10:12, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
Actually, this is a much better idea. Support the above. AG202 (talk) 13:28, 23 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
I also Support, I think this is a useful category, whereas including non-indigenous languages is unworkable.--Urszag (talk) 11:36, 6 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
Keep: states have a variety of languages and this saves space in the main category. The Australia category is big too, so I'm creating some for Australian states and territories (the NT will probably have the biggest category because of all the living Indigenous languages there). 2001:8004:2778:4E8D:40F:54A0:A43F:F695 08:16, 6 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
However, except for subregional dialects, I think we should just stick to putting languages spoken mostly or exclusively in that state or territory (so in the instance for Hawaii, Category:Hawaiian English would absolutely fit in Category:Languages of Hawaii, but Category:English language or Category:American English would not. 2001:8004:2778:4E8D:40F:54A0:A43F:F695 08:20, 6 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

October 2020

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Category:Regional English, Category:English dialectal terms (NOT subcategories)

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Latest comment: 5 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion

IMO it does not make sense to have some terms categorized directly into Category:Regional English (not its subcategories) and other terms categorized directly into Category:English dialectal terms, because in practice no-one seems to be maintaining a distinction as far as putting one kind of entry in one and another in the other, it seems haphazard as to whether an entry uses e.g. {{lb|en|US|regional}} / {{lb|en|UK|regional}} like pope, mercury, jack, snap, wedge, phosphate, tab, or gob, or else uses {{lb|en|US|dialectal}} / {{lb|en|UK|dialectal}} like pope (!), admire, haunt, on, sook, book, yinz, and gon. Many of the {{lb|en|US|dialectal}} / {{lb|en|UK|dialectal}} terms go on to specify which regions they're used in, like "Pittsburgh and Appalachia" or "Northern England" or "Scotland". And we put every more specific dialect category as a subcat of "Regional", not of "Dialectal". I'm not entirely sure which category the entries in the two top-level categories should be consolidated into, but I'm inclined to think they should go in one or the other. Or do we want to try to implement some distinction? (At the very least, entries that use "regional" but then go on to specify the regions, like "US, regional, Pittsburgh", can drop the unnecessary "regional".) The one situation I can think of where simply changing "regional" to "dialectal" would not work is that some entries are labelled "regional AAVE". Thoughts? - -sche (discuss) 01:06, 10 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

  • I personally think that dialectal and regional terms should be separated. Since a term for something in a region from an out-of-region dialect should be categorize into both regional dialects. -- 65.92.244.147 16:29, 22 November 2020 (UTC)Reply
  • I think the real problem is that it's not clear what we mean when we say something is dialectal. Linguistically, a dialect can be any speech variety that is separate from the rest of the language. With a language such as English that has multiple standards, you could say that much of the language is dialectal, though no one uses the term that way. I suspect there may be a value judgment involved: dialectal English is the way local people talk when they're not using proper English. Regional has less of that: I say potayto and you say potahto, but that's just a matter of geography. Theoretically, sociolects like AAVE and Cockney would be better described as dialectal than regional, but I'm not sure whether they're described as either. For a lot of people, though, it's probably whatever it's called in the references they check (or copy from). Chuck Entz (talk) 18:21, 22 November 2020 (UTC)Reply
"dialectal English is the way local people talk when they're not using proper English".
What, pray tell, is proper English? General Australian? Standard Canadian English? General American (*had trouble including that as a suggestion with a straight face*)? Standard Indian English?
If someone were to suggest that whatever is arbitrarily declared to be the 'standard' dialect of the English in their country is thus "proper English", and every other dialect is not, then that is obvious nonsense. I get that that is the reason why you used the phrasing value judgement, but if what you suggest to be going on is actually going on, then that is a problem.
Wiktionary aims to be descriptive, not prescriptive. So if the category "Regional English" is being used to suggest that certain dialectal terms are more "proper" than others, then we need to get rid of one category or the other. Tharthan (talk) 18:42, 22 November 2020 (UTC)Reply
I'm not agreeing with the value judgment. I was too lazy this morning to put everything in quotation marks. The basic problem is that this terminology goes back to earlier academic standards and it's hard to tell what it means in a more modern context. A dialectologist or other linguist would probably have a more rigorous definition, but we don't seem to. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:36, 22 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

November 2020

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Category:en:Artificial languages

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Latest comment: 4 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

This should probably be moved to Category:Conlangs, because:

. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 11:29, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

The odd choice of wording was intended to avoid the topical category conflicting with Category:Constructed languages, which is a holding category for those languages. Given that our MediaWiki trappings make it impossible to resolve this conflict, I support this proposal as a better compromise. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 06:16, 8 November 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Metaknowledge Do you mean that Category:en:Constructed languages would conflict with Category:Constructed languages? Would Category:en:Conlangs be an option? - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 06:23, 7 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
Strictly speaking, it's not a conflict between Category:en:Constructed languages and Category:Constructed languages, but between two possibly versions of Category:Constructed languages. Our structure for topical categories (categories for entries associated with a particular topic) and set categories (categories for names of things) consists of an umbrella category that holds all the language-specific categories that are the same as the umbrella category, but prefixed with the language code of the language in question. In other words, you can't have Category:en:Constructed languages without an umbrella category called Category:Constructed languages. The problem is that Category:Constructed languages can't be both an umbrella category for language-specific categories and the container for things like Category:Esperanto language and Category:Volapük language. In order to have language-specific categories, you have to have an umbrella category that doesn't conflict with the container category for constructed languages. Currently that umbrella category is Category:Artificial languages, but the proposal here is to change it to Category:Conlangs. Thus,Category:en:Artificial languages would become Category:en:Conlangs. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:22, 7 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

January 2021

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Category:Netherlands_Malay

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Latest comment: 5 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

These are terms that were historically used in the Dutch East Indies, perhaps to some degree also in Malay-speaking territories of the Dutch East India Company. A rename to Category:Dutch_East_Indies_Malay makes the most sense. It is doubtful that a category "Netherlands Malay" is needed because the number of speakers of Malay in the Netherlands is not very high. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 19:57, 10 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Support, assuming this can be demonstrated with cites for all the entries. Categories for polities that existed in the past is a good practice when merited; cf. Category:Rhodesian English. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 22:54, 10 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

October 2021

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Category:Bicycle types > Category:Bicycles

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Latest comment: 8 months ago5 comments5 people in discussion

·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 18:24, 15 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

Agree. DovaModaal (talk) 09:55, 16 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2 I'm inclined to carry this out, as Cat:List of type categories contains no other cats named "X types". However... I know you have said in the past something about renaming all type categories to "Types of Xs". Do you think that is realistically on the cards? Or should I just rename this category so it isn't an odd one out? This, that and the other (talk) 02:40, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
I would be inclined to leave as-is. There are other categories called 'Types of X' and I am indeed planning on (at some point) renaming categories to be "X (types)", "X (names)" or "X (related terms)". The problem with renaming to Category:Bicycles is that it becomes ambiguous between a type and a related-to category, and it's likely to start accumulating terms of both sorts, which will make it difficult to sort out later when I do rename the categories. Keeping it at "Bicycle types" means it's less likely to accrue related-to terms in it. Benwing2 (talk) 08:42, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

February 2022

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Merge Category:Classical Chinese, Category:Chinese literary terms

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Latest comment: 2 years ago21 comments4 people in discussion

Category:Classical Chinese presently has ~270 pages.

Category:Chinese literary terms presently has ~8,000 pages.

(Thankfully, Category:Literary Chinese lemmas has 0 pages.)


Category:Classical Chinese is currently described as: 

{{dialectboiler|zh|the 5th century BC to 2nd century AD, and continued as a [[literary language]] until the 20th century}}

[[Category:Old Chinese lemmas]]
[[Category:Middle Chinese lemmas]]
[[Category:Literary Chinese lemmas]]


Category:Korean Classical Chinese is a child category of Category:Classical Chinese, and may be a rationale for keeping Category:Classical Chinese in some form.

—Fish bowl (talk) 11:17, 7 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Fish bowl @Wpi @Justinrleung @RcAlex36 @沈澄心 I think we need to do something about this. I propose the following:
  1. At a minimum, we should merge Category:Classical Chinese with the Category:Literary Chinese language by renaming the latter to Category:Classical Chinese language.
  2. I also think we should demote the resulting Category:Classical Chinese language to an etym-only language of Category:Chinese language. It's purely a literary construct and not on the same level as the spoken varieties. Note for example that we don't have separate languages for Classical Latin, Koranic Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic.
  3. Finally, we should consider merging Category:Chinese literary terms into Category:Classical Chinese, as proposed above, but I don't have the background to know whether this is a good idea.
Any objections if I carry out #1 and #2? Benwing2 (talk) 19:13, 17 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2: "Literary Chinese" is the generally regarded the same as "Classical Chinese", but reading w:Classical_Chinese#Definitions I think we might want to keep them separate for lexicalgraphic purposes, by treating Literary Chinese as the later stages. Note that Classical Chinese is also distinct from "literary Chinese" (note the capitalisation), although they overlap in certain places (such as Ming/Qing era usage).
Using the hypothetical conjunction "if" as an example, 誠 / 诚 (chéng) and 向使 (xiàngshǐ) are found in Qin-Han era Classical Chinese, but not in Ming-Qing era Classical Chinese (which uses words closer to modern usage instead, i.e. literary terms) - I wouldn't call the former ones as literary terms, instead more like obsolete or archaic.
Early Classical Chinese (Qin-Han) is significantly different from modern Chinese in terms of grammar and pronunciation, a reasonably educated person would have a hard time understanding a text even with annotations; Tang-Song era Classical Chinese is still somewhat incomprehensible with a couple of obsolete (in modern standards) terms; late Classical Chinese (Ming-Qing) is more fuzzy and one might simply call it literary Chinese; in early modern times these are all considered to be one thing, which is why we have the misnomer Literary Chinese.

I think #1 of your proposal would be relatively uncontroversial, though I would wait to see input from others.
#2 is questionable, depending on what do we regard Chinese to be. Because we have everything placed under Chinese, this corresponds to like stuffing everything from Old Latin (or even earlier) to Neo-Latin into a subvariety of a Latin-Romance language without treating Latin itself as a language, which is a very awkward thing.
Classical Chinese has its own quotations (and as Fish bowl have mentioned we have Category:Korean Classical Chinese and Category:Vietnamese Classical Chinese - the quotations for these varieties are also placed under the Chinese L2), which are categorised as Category:Literary Chinese terms with quotations. Changing Classical Chinese to etymology-only would mean these quotations have nowhere to go - it is often impossible to discern where they should otherwise be treated. I would rather counter-propose that Category:Old Chinese language and Category:Middle Chinese language be treated as an etymology-only variant of Classical Chinese - OC and MC are essentially just a snapshot of the sound system at a particular time point in the history of Chinese.
#3 is 1000% a no, though I would support it if one day we were to accept Altaic languages as valid :)
Fish bowl's proposal might have been motivated by the similarities between late Classical Chinese and literary terms in modern Chinese, but a more in-depth look would suggest that this is untrue. – wpi (talk) 06:09, 19 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Wpi Old Chinese and Middle Chinese are more conventional languages, even if semi-reconstructed, so I would argue they should stay as full languages, whereas Classical Chinese is somewhat of an artificial construct, and normally we place those as etym languages. I think the issue here is that there is more than one Classical Chinese, whereas most Classical Foo languages are fairly unified. This suggests we should separate Classical Chinese into something like Old Classical Chinese or Early Classical Chinese (an etym language of Old Chinese), Middle Classical Chinese (an etym language of Middle Chinese), and Late Classical Chinese (an etym language of Chinese?). Benwing2 (talk) 06:20, 19 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
A few issues here. I think we've been kind of sloppy when it comes to the literary/classical distinction. Most entries have been using "literary" since that was what was the norm back in the day. "Classical" came later as the "Classical" label was introduced to other languages, which is probably why we have fewer uses of this label. While I think the Literary/Classical distinction is useful, I wonder if in labelling how we should be making the distinction. If a term is used in both Classical Chinese and Literary Chinese, such as 首 "head" (now labelled "archaic"), do we have to label it with both? Whatever we decide on, I think we also need to think about how this is organized in {{zh-x}}.
In principle, I think #1 would be something okay to do. #2 doesn't seem okay per Wpi. The issue with Classical Chinese is that it cannot fit neatly in OC or MC because as Wpi said, these are snapshots of the phonology. There is also Classical/Literary Chinese works written way after the Middle Chinese period, but not necessarily able to be considered as any modern Chinese variety. #3 would probably need to be worked out entry by entry. Some entries should probably be moved to Classical Chinese, but others may be used in highly formal modern writing. It might be difficult to distinguish the two given our previous usage of "literary" as a label. We would need to set stricter definitions for what goes where. — justin(r)leung { (t...) | c=› } 03:33, 20 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Justinrleung @Wpi @Fish bowl Pinging the people who previously participated as well as @Theknightwho. I am trying to convert all the bespoke variety codes in {{zh-x}} to standard codes. I added zhx-lit for "Literary Chinese", specifically the later stage of Classical Chinese; but this conflicts with the name of zhx. I really think we should rename zhx, probably to Classical Chinese. The only issue with this term is that sometimes Classical Chinese specifically seems to refer to the 5th century BC - 2nd century AD period, as in Category:Classical Chinese, or some other similar time period. I'm thinking maybe we need a different term for this: Han Classical Chinese? Although strictly speaking, the Han dynasty only began in the 3rd century BC. Or "Late Old Classical Chinese"? Please note, I also added zhx-pre for "Pre-Classical Chinese" corresponding to the old CL-PC code; but I have no idea if this makes any sense, as it seems awfully similar to Old Chinese. Benwing2 (talk) 04:47, 27 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
I should add, I also added a code cmn-bec for "Beijingic Mandarin", which is the primary branch of Mandarin that includes Beijing and environs. This is described in Wikipedia under Beijing Mandarin (division of Mandarin) whereas Beijing Mandarin itself (code cmn-bei) is described under Beijing dialect. The term "Beijingic" comes from Glottolog. This was added to correspond to the M-UIB code added and used primary by User:Dokurrat. Since M-UIB is described as "dialectal Beijingesque Mandarin", I assume it approximately corresponds to the Beijingic primary branch. Note that the existence of Beijingic is somewhat controversial as some researchers place Beijing and surrounding dialects into Northeastern Mandarin. I also added labels (but not etym codes) for all primary Mandarin branches and many individual dialects under these branches; basically, any dialect that had 4 or more mentions among the labels as well as any dialect where I could find a corresponding English Wikipedia page describing it. (There are more dialects with Chinese Wikipedia pages but I haven't yet found them all.) Eventually I think we should assign etym codes to most or all of these dialects but for the moment I'm mostly just collecting them into labels; once I have a fairly complete set of labels it will be easier to assign codes in a semi-consistent fashion. Also, I am ready to push the code to allow both new (standard) and old (bespoke) variety codes in {{zh-x}} and then convert all uses to the new codes, but this can't run until my current run obsoleting {{zh-noun}} and {{zh-hanzi}} finishes. (It's run for ~ 22 hours so far and has maybe 14 hours to go.) Benwing2 (talk) 07:01, 27 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
BTW here is the current mapping I have worked out from old bespoke {{zh-x}} codes to standard codes:
old_to_std_code_mapping = {
  "MSC": "cmn",
  "M-BJ": "cmn-bei",
  "M-TW": "cmn-TW",
  "M-MY": "cmn-MY",
  "M-SG": "cmn-SG",
  "M-PH": "cmn-PH",
  "M-TJ": "cmn-tia",
  "M-NE": "cmn-noe",
  "M-CP": "cmn-cep",
  "M-GZ": "cmn-gua",
  "M-LY": "cmn-lan",
  "M-S": "zhx-sic",
  "M-NJ": "cmn-nan",
  "M-YZ": "cmn-yan",
  "M-W": "cmn-wuh",
  "M-GL": "cmn-gui",
  "M-XN": "cmn-xin",
  "M-UIB": "cmn-bec",
  "M-DNG": "dng",
  
  "CL": "lzh",
  "CL-TW": "lzh-cmn-TW",
  "CL-C": "lzh-yue",
  "CL-C-T": "lzh-tai",
  "CL-VN": "lzh-VI",
  "CL-KR": "lzh-KO",
  "CL-PC": "lzh-pre",
  "CL-L": "lzh-lit",

  "CI": "lzh-cii",
  
  "WVC": "cmn-wvc",
  "WVC-C": "yue-wvc",
  "WVC-C-T": "zhx-tai-wvc",

  "C": "yue",
  "C-GZ": "yue-gua",
  "C-LIT": "yue-lit",
  "C-HK": "yue-HK",
  "C-T": "zhx-tai",
  "C-DZ": "zhx-dan",

  "J": "cjy",
  
  "MB": "mnp",
  
  "MD": "cdo",
  
  "MN": "nan-hbl",
  "TW": "nan-hbl-TW",
  "MN-PN": "nan-pen",
  "MN-PH": "nan-hbl-PH",
  "MN-T": "nan-tws",
  "MN-L": "nan-luh",
  "MN-HLF": "nan-hlh",
  "MN-H": "nan-hnm",
  
  "W": "wuu",
  "SH": "wuu-sha",
  "W-SZ": "wuu-suz",
  "W-HZ": "wuu-han",
  "W-CM": "wuu-chm",
  "W-NB": "wuu-nin",
  "W-N": "wuu-nor",
  "W-WZ": "wuu-wen",
  
  "G": "gan",

  "X": "hsn",
  
  "H": "hak-six",
  "H-HL": "hak-hai",
  "H-DB": "hak-dab",
  "H-MX": "hak-mei",
  "H-MY-HY": "hak-hui-MY",
  "H-EM": "hak-eam",
  "H-ZA": "hak-zha",
  
  "WX": "wxa",
}

Benwing2 (talk) 04:52, 27 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

On a second thought, I don't think we should have yue-wvc and zhx-tai-wvc as they seems to be too similar to lzh-yue and lzh-tai, plus WVC-C is used only once in 萊苑 (and none for WVC-C-T). @Fish bowl who added the ux in 萊苑 for comment. – wpi (talk) 13:07, 27 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Wpi What is the difference between lzh-yue (CL-C) and yue-lit (C-LIT)? The former occurs 35 times and the latter 415 times. Benwing2 (talk) 18:09, 27 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Wpi WVC-C-T seems to be used 4 times: 亞利務, 交帶, 粗市畔 and 赤市. WVC-C is used on 10 pages: 公仔, 小粉紅, 市卜頃, 格仔, 正埠 (3 usexes), 羅生, 苛例, 菜苑 (2 usexes), 萊苑 and 葛崙. Benwing2 (talk) 02:30, 28 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
WVC-C can probably be merged into C-LIT, but I don't have any particular suggestion for the *-C-T codes.
Mentioning this again: perhaps we should use a bipartite system giving the text language and the pronunciation language, such as lzh/cmn-TW (Literary Chinese in Taiwanese Mandarin pronunciation). —Fish bowl (talk) 03:49, 30 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Fish bowl Thanks for bringing this up; I missed it last time. In fact my recent overhaul of Module:zh-usex/data implemented something very similar. Essentially, there is the variety code, which is typically an etym-only language code, and then for each such variety there is a second "norm code" that is used for romanization (i.e. pronunciation) purposes. There's nothing preventing us from implementing your suggestion on top of this, if it proves necessary. Benwing2 (talk) 04:15, 30 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Fish bowl @Wpi Just to confirm: All three of WVC-C (yue-wvc) "Written vernacular Cantonese", CL-C (lzh-yue) "Classical Cantonese" and C-LIT (yue-lit) "Literary Cantonese" can be merged? This is based on @Wpi suggesting merging WVC-C with CL-C and @Fish bowl suggesting merging WVC-C with C-LIT. I assume that if these were different they would refer to different time periods (?), but I don't know if there's enough difference to warrant separation. Benwing2 (talk) 05:02, 30 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2: Incorrect. I believe the problem here is that we have multiple understanding of the usage of the Cantonese codes. General speaking, there are these types:
  1. modern spoken Cantonese
  2. modern written vernacular Chinese (e.g. Hong Kong Chinese)
  3. written vernacular Chinese from 19th/early 20th century
  4. Classical Chinese that uses Cantonese pronunciation
  5. spoken Cantonese from 19th/early 20th century (e.g. dictionaries from missionaries)
They are especially difficult to tell apart when the phrase/sentence is short and does not contain much grammatical features.
Justin, Alex and I uses C for #1 and #5 (or the newly added C-HK when applicable), C-LIT for #2, and C-CL for #3 and #4.
Fish Bowl uses C-GZ for #1, WVC-C for #2 and #3, and C-CL for #4. (Please correct me if my understanding is incorrect)
I think what we need to do here is to change WVC-C into C-LIT or C-CL according to the context. – wpi (talk) 12:54, 30 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Wpi OK thanks and apologies for my confusion, I haven't encountered before (as a linguist) the situation where there's a big gap between the written and spoken forms and multiple ways of pronouncing a given written form. Benwing2 (talk) 20:11, 30 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
I should add, does anyone mind my renaming the old {{zh-x}} codes to the new ones? As shown in the above table, no information will be lost because there is a one-to-one mapping between the old and new codes. Benwing2 (talk) 02:56, 31 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
I don't particularly support the usage of the C-GZ [Guangzhou Cantonese] tag, and think that (for zh-usex at least) it can be safely merged into C [standard Cantonese]. For 2 (modern HK) I also use C-LIT.
I'd also like to comment that "gua" in the replacement code "yue-gua" feels very foreign and unintuitive. —Fish bowl (talk) 07:13, 31 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Fish bowl Hmm. Do you have a better suggestion in place of yue-gua? Benwing2 (talk) 08:00, 31 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Fish bowl Is your thought that we should use just "Cantonese" (yue, or yue-can as suggested in the RFM discussion below) as the language code? This would be parallel to the normal handling of Latin, where Classical Latin terms are usually identified as just "Latin" (code la), although there's also a code for "Classical Latin" (code la-cla or CL.). The use of Guangzhou Cantonese specifically (yue-gua) as a code would then be restricted to cases where it's important to distinguish usage that is specific to urban Guangzhou speech as opposed to Standard Cantonese. I think this is also parallel to the use of cmn (Standard Mandarin) vs. cmn-bei for Beijing Mandarin. Benwing2 (talk) 00:48, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
yue-gua: maybe yue-gzh? Keeping the initials is more sane IMO but I also remember that you wrote your own guideline in one of the other discussion.
code: I think we are on the same page, yes. —Fish bowl (talk) 08:10, 2 April 2024 (UTC)Reply


Category:en:Multiracial

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Latest comment: 1 year ago10 comments7 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

I don’t think it is a proper category. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 20:32, 26 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Inqilābī: I think you'll need to explain why it's not "proper". — SGconlaw (talk) 20:56, 26 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
  1. It is not in proper category format; we do not have Category:Multiracial. (It was created unilaterally without consensus.)
  2. This category is a hotchpotch of random entries. All ethnonyms, including mixed races (such as mestizo, mulatto, Eurasian), belong in CAT:Ethnonyms; ethnic slurs have their own separate category; CAT:Scientific racism and CAT:Eugenics could be separate categories, if useful.
  3. Even the category name is not grammatically correct, it should be either multiracial people or multiracials.
  4. A lot of mixed-race group names are not dictionary material, being SoPs. Therefore, I do not think we need any category dedicated to multiracial people (the name as used in that category, which itself links to Wikipedia). ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 21:36, 26 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
    I think a lot of third culture kids would disagree with that last point... Theknightwho (talk) 21:51, 26 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
    William Jones (philologist) was an Anglo-Welsh person. This racial term should remain as a redlink; tho’ it could have a different idiomatic sense. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 14:34, 27 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
    Issue #1 could be addressed very easily by adding it to the category tree. Issue #3 could be addressed by renaming the category. I don't find #4 a very convincing argument. We could just keep the ones that aren't SOP and delete the ones that are, which is the same rule we apply to any other kind of term. There are evidently plenty of such terms in English that are single words or idiomatic. Also, the RfD of Irish American closed as keep, and although that isn't a term related to mixed ancestry, it shows that hyphenated or spaced combinations of nationalities aren't necessarily regarded as SOP by the community.
    Point #2 seems to be the most substantial, but as I wrote in my comment below I think there might be value in separating out these terms from other ethnonyms. And not all of these fall under Scientific racism or Eugenics. I don't think Blasian or Finndian are necessarily associated with racism or eugenics. Such terms seem to be used as identities by members of the groups themselves. That said, I don't particularly object to deletion either. 70.172.194.25 02:17, 23 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
Delete per nom. —Svārtava (t/u) • 09:46, 27 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Delete per nom. — excarnateSojourner (talk · contrib) 06:20, 16 February 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • I can see some potential value in keeping a separate category for things like mulatto, Blasian, Chindian, the last of which isn't even in the category currently. I think there is something different about those terms as compared to most ethnonyms, and Wikipedia seems to agree given that it has a "Multiracial affairs" category with similar terms as members.

    While an argument could be made that almost all human populations have admixture from multiple groups and so almost everyone is in some sense multi-ethnic, I don't think most would e.g. include Desi in this category even if one could theoretically make an argument that the Indian subcontinent has a mix of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian genetics. It has to be a term for someone whose recent ancestors came from different groups, not way back in (pre)history. One doesn't have to be a racial essentialist to realize that people who fall under this umbrella are viewed differently in society (hence the existence of such terms).

    That said, I don't particularly object to deletion, as the issue may be more trouble than it's worth, most commenters support deletion, and the category mixes relatively PC and highly offensive terms as though there is no distinction.

    The inclusion of BIPOC in this category perplexes me. I thought "multiracial" in this context describes a person with mixed ancestry, not a coalition of different ethnic groups. 70.172.194.25 01:55, 23 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

March 2022

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move Category:Japanese romaji without a main entry to Category:Japanese redlinks/ja-romanization of

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Latest comment: 3 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

in line with Category:Redlinks by language. —Fish bowl (talk) 03:57, 14 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

move Category:Chinese terms with uncreated forms to Category:Chinese redlinks/zh-see

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I don't remember doing this lol. It makes sense though; 肉体的 points to 肉體的#Chinese which doesn't exist. —Fish bowl (talk) 21:27, 25 February 2023 (UTC)Reply

move Category:Sino-Vietnamese words with uncreated Han etymology to Category:Vietnamese redlinks/vi-etym-sino

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Category:2-letter words by language

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Latest comment: 1 year ago14 comments11 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

Category:3-letter words by language

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Category:1-letter words by language

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All entries are manually categorized. If we must have these categories, can’t the categorization be automated? ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 16:35, 10 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

Sure, but why are you proposing them for deletion? This sounds like a bot request. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:57, 10 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
Actually I wanted to know whether the community wishes to keep these categories… ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 11:05, 11 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
I'm good with keeping them, but it should be automated. Theknightwho (talk) 00:45, 12 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
It would be impossible to add these automatically without rendering the categories essentially meaningless. For example, d has several POSs which consist only of abbreviation senses (which evidently don't count as "words" in the eyes of this categorisation system), but the headword line template has no way of knowing that. This, that and the other (talk) 04:27, 12 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
Not to mention the fact that we don't want to increase Lua memory burden on Latin script letter pages, so a lot of headword templates on a few such entries (currently a, A, b, o, u) are using {{head-lite}} anyway. 70.172.194.25 05:22, 12 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
Keep - useful for word games and other things. John Cross (talk) 22:06, 23 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
@Inqilābī Keep three-letter words. I asked (under my old account) about using a bot to populate (specifically the English subcategories of) these categories last June and @Suzukaze-c said that they could be trivially populated using {{head}} or its subtemplates. Several months later I sought consensus to populate them (and someone with template editing privileges) and received no responses. But I do not have a solution to the problem pointed out by @This, that and the other above, so for now I will abstain on one-letter words. - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 23:06, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Reply
Keep I agree the one and two letter categories are useful. As pointed out, a bot can't make proper categorization since it can't separate words from other character groups like abbreviations. Bots could assist maintenance, if all n-letter entries were flagged with either "include" or "exclude" templates or some such; the bots could report entries missing either flag into a maintenance category for manual attention. --R. S. Shaw (talk) 18:11, 21 May 2022 (UTC)Reply
It can do it via parts of speech and checking for templates like {{initialism of}}. It's certainly doable, I think. Theknightwho (talk) 21:53, 9 August 2022 (UTC)Reply
Delete. Racist. Everything in Semitic languages is three letters, the most important words shorter than that. Not to speak of CJK. Databases usable for word games should be designed by external applications, this is basically special-casing Standard Average European languages. Also disproportionate maintenance burden. Fay Freak (talk) 15:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
i agree with your last point. it is a high maintenance burden for those who maintain it. i do not agree with your first point that the category is racist because three letter words are common in semitic languages. unless you can explain why the existence of semitic languages makes this language-independent category racist, that line of reasoning is invalid. TheQWERTYCoder (talk) 20:12, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply
Delete all with prejudice. — SURJECTION / T / C / L / 14:58, 11 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
no explanation? no reasoning? why do you think these pages should be deleted? TheQWERTYCoder (talk) 19:51, 3 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Templates and reference templates by language family rather than by language

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Latest comment: 3 years ago11 comments3 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

For some reason, we have Category:Indo-Aryan reference templates and Category:Sino-Tibetan templates but not other families and subfamilies. See Category:Templates by language, where we don't have Category:Niger-Kongo reference templates or Category:Semitic reference templates or Category:Balto-Slavic reference templates. I propose that we delete these two one-offs or at the very least, change the hierarchy explicitly to include larger language families. There's no reason for these two outliers. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:50, 13 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

Cf. https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?oldid=64486872#Undeletion_of_CAT:Indo-Aryan_reference_templates —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:51, 13 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
@Koavf: Please see the bottom of that category that contains reference templates pertaining to the Indo-Aryan language family as a whole, rather than specific languages or even chronolects. Since Wiktionary does not treat Indo-Aryan as a united macrolanguage like Sinitic/Chinese, it makes more sense to dedicate a separate category for the current reference templates that deal with Indo-Aryan linguistics. That said, we may remove the 56 individual language categories from the list. (Pinging @Kutchkutch, Bhagadatta, Svartava, AryamanA for more input.)
I’m not sure what to be done with other families, or if consistency is needful across all languages: in that case you could raise the matter in the BP. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 11:32, 13 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
@Inqilābī: You are correct that some of these are about Indo-Aryan at large, but 1.) they can just be put into specific language categories as they are used on entries for those languages, 2.) what I'm suggesting is already done in practice for several of these categories (and was before I started editing them), and 3.) there are definitely other references that apply to more than one (e.g.) Romance language or Semitic language as well, so we're back to either sorting one reference template into several individual language categories (my preference) or building out the module and hierarchy to include language families. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:45, 13 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
@Koavf I find the existence of these categories very convenient and do not support their deletion. There is a long history of comparative literature on these families and in that respect being able to easily find reference templates for related language varieties is useful. If these categories are outliers, then I would suggest that the creation of more like them would actually be a better idea. I could see such categories being particularly useful for Iranian languages, Dravidian languages, Austro-Asiatic, for example. عُثمان (talk) 16:27, 21 July 2023 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. You've been able to use this category scheme before? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:37, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply
Yes—for example on an entry like urial, it was helpful for locating the relevant reference templates for reconstructing the etymology عُثمان (talk) 02:44, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply
Were they recategorized the way I suggested, would you not have been able to use it as effectively? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:01, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply
No—the larger a category is, the more challenging I find it to navigate it. (Even the difference in the amount of time it takes to load the pages is non-trivial since I don't have a great internet connection.) عُثمان (talk) 17:29, 22 July 2023 (UTC)Reply
And my proposal is to make smaller categories, so you made my argument for me. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:51, 23 July 2023 (UTC)Reply
If you make smaller subcategories, the containing category becomes larger. There also aren't any established genetic subgroupings of Indo-Aryan to make smaller categories with. (Most schemes which do so out of convenience on solely geographic criteria end up splitting mutually intelligible dialects between subgroups.) So it is not clear what sort of categories you are suggesting be made عُثمان (talk) 03:11, 23 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

May 2022

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Category:Eponyms by language

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Latest comment: 4 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
See also WT:RFM#toponyms

Man has taken a quick look and found that eponym is a term not restricted to words after persons, bare logically since ὄνυμα (ónuma) merely means name, i.e. in modern linguistic terminology proper noun, so we might reckon that our definition under eponym (inconsistent with the single adjective definition and Wikipedia) is a prescriptivist legend (of the dark mid 20·00s to which the categorizations and definitions date) and we rather have to move the category to Category:Terms derived from anthroponyms by language to attain consistency with Category:Terms derived from toponyms by language and mislead the public less. Fay Freak (talk) 20:31, 16 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

June 2022

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Category:Flat earth

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Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Given that our planet's name is usually capitalized, I think this should be moved to Category:Flat Earth. Binarystep (talk) 03:51, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Category:Dependent territories of France

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Latest comment: 5 months ago9 comments4 people in discussion

Delete and merge into Category:Places in France or some appropriate equivalent. France does not have dependencies: all its overseas territories are integrated into the French Republic. See also: Category:ca:Dependent territories of France, Category:zh:Dependent territories of France, Category:nl:Dependent territories of France, Category:en:Dependent territories of France, Category:fi:Dependent territories of France, Category:fr:Dependent territories of France, Category:de:Dependent territories of France, Category:el:Dependent territories of France, Category:hu:Dependent territories of France, Category:ga:Dependent territories of France, Category:it:Dependent territories of France, Category:ja:Dependent territories of France, Category:lv:Dependent territories of France, Category:nrf:Dependent territories of France, Category:nb:Dependent territories of France, Category:nn:Dependent territories of France, Category:pl:Dependent territories of France, Category:pt:Dependent territories of France, Category:rar:Dependent territories of France, Category:ro:Dependent territories of France, Category:ru:Dependent territories of France, Category:es:Dependent territories of France, Category:sv:Dependent territories of France, Category:tr:Dependent territories of France, Category:vi:Dependent territories of France, and Category:vo:Dependent territories of France —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:10, 23 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Koavf What do you call New Caledonia, French Polynesia and such if not dependent territories? Benwing2 (talk) 00:40, 24 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
New Caledonia is a sui generis overseas collectivity of France. It has membership in the French parliament and France's rule of law and citizenship extends there just like in Corsica or Guadelope or Lyons. None of these are dependencies: they are all first-level administrative divisions of the French Republic. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:48, 24 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
I want a category for all overseas territories of France, and I don't much care about the technicalities. What is the right category? Benwing2 (talk) 01:52, 24 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
I would have absolutely no objection to Category:Overseas France as a subcat of Category:Places in France and that can include everywhere other than Metropolitan/European France (the mainland, Corsica, and other nearby islands). Seems sensible to me. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:00, 24 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
That is hard to do in the current framework without major hacking. There used to be Category:Collectivities in France populated by these entities, will that work? Are they all collectivities? Benwing2 (talk) 05:05, 24 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Guadeloupe, Mayotte etc are not collectivities. Unfortunately Justin is right, we need CAT:Overseas France if we're going to be strictly correct here. This, that and the other (talk) 04:20, 26 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
@This, that and the other, Koavf: the Wikipedia page starts like this: “Overseas France (...), offically the overseas departments and territories, (...)”. Could Category:Overseas departments and territories of France work here? Einstein2 (talk) 19:39, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think that's reasonable. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:02, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

July 2022

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Inconsistent capitalization of I/internet slang

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Latest comment: 8 months ago20 comments9 people in discussion

We capitalize it as a label — (Internet slang), but not in the category name — Category:English internet slang. When I was adding this category I thought it would also be capitalized, like in the label (but it was a red link). J3133 (talk) 09:16, 15 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Not just for English slang; see Category:Internet slang by language and Category:Internet laughter slang by language.  --Lambiam 15:30, 15 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
I am aware that the slang category is not exclusive to English; however, @Lambiam, what is our solution? J3133 (talk) 15:49, 15 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
The regular approach is to list these at WT:RFM. This seems, however, a place where proposals go to linger in limbo: there is an unresolved category move request (WT:RFM § Category:WC) from 2015. The sledgehammer approach is to create a vote at WT:VOTE.  --Lambiam 17:20, 15 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
Good point; I have moved it. J3133 (talk) 17:33, 15 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
@J3133 What did you move? Category: English internet slang has not been moved since 2019. - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 00:16, 23 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
@ExcarnateSojourner: I moved this discussion from the Beer parlour. J3133 (talk) 18:11, 13 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
Personally, I would lowercase the label (and anything else). On the other hand, Google Books Ngrams suggests Internet is more common. That said, it's less work to lowercase the label than to move all the categories... - -sche (discuss) 23:33, 23 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
According to capitalization of Internet, cited by excarnateSojourner, the trend of capitalising the I in internet is decreasing. So I'll  support lowercasing the I in the label. The higher rank of Internet in Google Ngram Viewer is maybe because internet sometime occurs at the beginning of a sentence and is thus capitalised. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 08:07, 9 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
Looks like it was originally capitalized. Mnemosientje (talk • contribs) lowercased it back in 2019. - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 00:15, 23 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
The capitalization of Internet is a whole thing, but for what it's worth Wikipedia does capitalize it. - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 00:15, 23 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
@ExcarnateSojourner: Wikipedia's inconsistent too. Compare Category:History of the Internet and Category:People related to the internet. However, the capitalized spelling does seem to be more common in category names, so I  support capitalizing Category:English internet slang. Binarystep (talk) 03:11, 13 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
It should be capitalised. There is such a thing as "an internet" or internetwork (generic; although you very rarely hear this terminology any more), versus "the Internet" (the global thing we all use all the time). Same deal with "the Web" versus (I suppose) "a web" although I don't remember even the most braggart webmasters using the latter. As always, citable usage trumps what I say, but I am historically correct. Equinox ◑ 03:14, 13 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

Closing as no consensus after three-and-a-half years. I would also note that the inconsistency, although it will persist for now, is very minor. This, that and the other (talk) 09:27, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@This, that and the other: It was mentioned by excarnateSojourner above that it was originally capitalized but Mnemosientje changed it out of process, which would mean it should be undone. J3133 (talk) 10:26, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
@This, that and the other: I have moved the category back but it needs to be reflected in the module. J3133 (talk) 12:08, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
@This, that and the other: In fact it was originally not capitalized but moved by User123o987name, which Mnemosientje moved back the same day; I have undone my changes as @excarnateSojourner’s claim was incorrect. J3133 (talk) 12:24, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:DoggoLingo → Category:English DoggoLingo

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Latest comment: 8 months ago24 comments10 people in discussion

DoggoLingo is the jargon used in doge memes. This should be changed to "Category:English DoggoLingo," since it contains only English terms, and to remain consistent with similar categories (e.g. Category:English 4chan slang). WordyAndNerdy (talk) 05:29, 30 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

@WordyAndNerdy: 4chan is not only English: see DoggoLingo: “A form of English-language Internet slang related to dogs”. Compare Category:Rotwelsch, etc. J3133 (talk) 06:11, 30 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
"Category:[Language] [word type]" is the standard naming convention of lexical categories. Category:English irregular nouns, Category:English onomatopoeias, Category:English fandom slang, etc. This category contains only English-language DoggoLingo terms, and thus the correct name should be "Category:English DoggoLingo". German-language DoggoLingo terms would go under "Category:German DoggoLingo", French DoggoLiggo would go under "Category:French DoggoLingo", etc. (Presuming this meme has spread to other languages.) WordyAndNerdy (talk) 06:24, 30 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
@WordyAndNerdy: I just stated why it does not have “English” in the title: see DoggoLingo: “A form of English-language Internet slang related to dogs”. For the same reason, Category:Rotwelsch is not “German Rotwelsch”, etc. J3133 (talk) 06:29, 30 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
We could use some empirical data here. Does DoggoLingo or a close equivalent actually exist in German or French? If it does, that provides some reason to approve this proposal (and possibly to update the relevant articles). If not, it provides some reason to reject it. 98.170.164.88 06:40, 30 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
I agree with this. WordyAndNerdy, do you have proof that Internet slang related to dogs (i.e., of the type of DoggoLingo) exists in other languages, and would use the same name derived from English slang? J3133 (talk) 06:45, 30 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
*deep existential sigh* English-language lexical categories have an established naming convention. I have never seen an English-language lexical category that was just "Category:Word type" (e.g. "Category:Fandom slang", "Category:Military slang", etc.) in 10+ years of contributing. Can't speak for lexical categories in other languages, but if someone wants to change an established convention, they need to do so by obtaining consensus, not by unilaterally imposing a new standard. This is an extremely straightforward request and having to get bogged down in bureaucratic discussions like this means less time for doing productive things like attesting Internet slang. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 07:15, 30 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
The difference is that “DoggoLingo” is a proper noun, not just another word type. J3133 (talk) 07:18, 30 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
*deeper existential sigh* This reasoning is, to be perfectly frank, bizarre and arbitrary. Twitch-speak is a proper noun too. Guess what the relevant English-language lexical category is named? There's an established convention, and this category's name doesn't follow it. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 07:27, 30 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
A proper noun that specifically refers to English, if you are not already aware. Like Rotwelsch is a proper noun referring to German. J3133 (talk) 07:30, 30 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
The Wikipedia article defines DoggoLingo as an "Internet language" and doesn't specify that it's limited exclusively to English in said definition. In any case, this is completely perpendicular to the issue of what the category should be named. No one had to prove the existence of Dutch Twitch-speak, Korean Twitch-speak, etc. to create "Category:English Twitch-speak." That's what the category ought to be named following the established naming convention of English-language lexical categories. (And given that you haven't incorporated this category into the category tree module -- which is like step two of creating a new category -- maybe it isn't prudent to act as if you have special expertise or authority in this area.) WordyAndNerdy (talk) 07:51, 30 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
You are the one acting you have authority here, though. Category:Rotwelsch is not in the category tree either, not sure what is your point. J3133 (talk) 07:54, 30 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
Let consensus decide, instead of assuming this is a “straightforward request”. J3133 (talk) 08:02, 30 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
Support. I'm reminded of the discussion I started about how to handle Category:Thieves' cant. Binarystep (talk) 06:37, 31 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
And the consensus of that discussion seems to be that "Thieves' cant" is a strictly English historical example of criminal slang, and that the non-English entries in Category:Thieves' cant should be moved to language-specific criminal slang subcategories- the opposite of this proposal.
It's true that there's a naming convention to put language names in category names, but that doesn't apply to this kind of entry, and saying it does shows a misunderstanding of the convention. While there's nothing to stop other languages from having their own equivalents to DoggoLingo, it seems to have been created by English-speakers using humor based on the peculiarities of the English language. If other languages come up with their own equivalents, I sincerely doubt that they would be called DoggoLingo. DoggoLingo is a variety of English, just like pig Latin and double Dutch, and "English DoggoLingo" would be redundant. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:13, 31 July 2022 (UTC)Reply
Funny you should mention Pig Latin, since the category for that is called Category:English Pig Latin terms. Binarystep (talk) 02:54, 1 August 2022 (UTC)Reply
For the record, that category is very poorly formatted unsurprisingly. There’s no overarching Category:Pig Latin or Category Pig Latin terms, nor does there seem to be other languages linked to it, so there really shouldn’t be an English label there. AG202 (talk) 11:02, 1 August 2022 (UTC)Reply
I agree, the English label should be removed; see the RFM. J3133 (talk) 11:16, 1 August 2022 (UTC)Reply
As I did not vote: oppose per Chuck Entz. J3133 (talk) 10:02, 31 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

This was put up for RFM back in 2022, but I couldn't find a discussion so I assume one was never started. This should definitely be at a topic category Category:en:Doggo lingo if we should even have such a category in the first place (which I don't think we do). @WordyAndNerdy: pinging original nominator - saph ^_^⠀talk⠀ 14:32, 3 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Saph: I have merged your comment with the discussion. As has been mentioned by Chuck Entz (and I agreed), “English DoggoLingo” would be redundant (not “Doggo lingo” (see DoggoLingo), and not with “en:” because this is not a topic category). J3133 (talk) 14:46, 3 February 2025 (UTC)Reply
Do any languages other than English have "DoggoLingo" terms, which they call DoggoLingo? It's believable, but AFAICT undemonstrated (and I haven't spotted any in my own limited search). If "DoggoLingo" is, as presently defined, definitionally English-only, then the current name is in line with e.g. Category:Verlan (which is a subcategory of CAT:French language without having to be named "French verlan", since there is apparently no other kind of verlan), and Category:Rotwelsch, as patiently pointed out to OP above. (Category:English Thieves' Cant has "English" in the name despite being English-only, but that's partly my own fault and was the result of an RFM trying to solve a different problem, of people putting other languages' criminal slang in the category. Still, it means Wiktionary does not have one singular standard way of dealing with "language-specific slangs".) OTOH, if non-English DoggoLingo entries exist, then the categories would need to be specified by language. - -sche (discuss) 23:56, 4 February 2025 (UTC)Reply
Just to add, we have several other such categories, e.g. Category:Katharevousa, Category:Kaliarda, Category:Polari, etc. Benwing2 (talk) 00:59, 5 February 2025 (UTC)Reply
Keep the status quo, barring a centralised BP discussion that agrees to rename all the categories of the type highlighted by Benwing just above me. This, that and the other (talk) 09:23, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

August 2022

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Category:English Pig Latin terms → Category:Pig Latin terms

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Latest comment: 1 month ago5 comments5 people in discussion

As AG202 stated in the DoggoLingo category RFM, “There’s no overarching Category:Pig Latin or Category Pig Latin terms, nor does there seem to be other languages linked to it, so there really shouldn’t be an English label there.” This was after Chuck Entz used the argument there that “English DoggoLingo” would be redundant, “just like pig Latin”, then Binarystep pointed out that the Pig Latin category does use the English label—redundantly. J3133 (talk) 11:24, 1 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

Move to Cat:Pig Latin per the discussion above about DoggoLingo. This is the way we name variety category like Cat:Polari and all the others listed by Benwing there. This, that and the other (talk) 09:25, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Move per TTO. - -sche (discuss) 16:19, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Move. MedK1 (talk) 23:51, 1 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Some categories for historical countries

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Latest comment: 4 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

CAT:Czechoslovakia, CAT:West Germany, CAT:Yugoslavia. All of these mostly contain either of the following three types of entries:

1. Terms denoting the country (Кралство Југославија, Republika Federalna Niemiec) or its inhabitants (Westdeutsche)
2. Terms denoting a currency or something similar that is in no way specific to this period in time (halerz, korona)
3. Terms denoting a place name of a town or city that still exists (Prague, ベオグラード)

The category for Yugoslavia does include a handful of entries that do not fall into these types, but are still pretty basic and do not imho need a category (these are terms like Yugoslav People's Army).

I feel like these categories denote historical periods of countries that are not culturally significant enough to warrant a separate category, but rather should be distributed among the country's descendant's/s' categories. I don't see - judging by the entries now present in the category - how Yugoslavia is more culturally and/or historically significant than, say, the Batavian Republic, the Kingdom of Italy or the French Third Republic. I do not think these three categories are at all comparable with CAT:Soviet Union or even CAT:East Germany (again, judging by the current entries that are added to the respective categories). Thadh (talk) 18:15, 21 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

It seems that at least for Category:West Germany, the category just isn't populated in the same way that Category:East Germany is, at least for English. I've created the category Category:en:West Germany, and populated with a few entries. I also added terms like Wessi and Besserwessi to the respective category for German. With that, I think that the categories just need to have entries actually marked with them before really talking about deletion. AG202 (talk) 18:57, 21 August 2022 (UTC)Reply
I still think marking terms like fall of the wall with "historical"+"Germany" would suffice, without creating these niche categories. Thadh (talk) 19:37, 21 August 2022 (UTC)Reply
My point was more that if Category:en:East Germany exists then Category:en:West Germany should as well, looking at the entries in both. I'm aware that Category:DDR_German exists as well for East German German, but that can exist easily without Category:de:East Germany. Either they should both go or they should both stay. Same with the Yugoslavia category. The only one I'd maybe support deleting is the Czechslovakia category, but I have a strong feeling that it just hasn't been populated and there may be Czech or Slovak terms that would have a special place in it. AG202 (talk) 22:54, 21 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

January 2023

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Category:Breakable Han characters

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Latest comment: 3 years ago10 comments5 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

The category seems to be a very small set of characters that may or may not actually be derived from a process of "breaking". I also don't know if the title of the category is appropriate. — justin(r)leung { (t...) | c=› } 02:37, 19 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

What do you mean? I'm not sure how much you know about Chinese glyph origins, but is it not obvious that 彳亍 is a broken up version of 行? It's pretty much accepted that 行 came first and then the other characters were derived from breaking it into two halves. And thus with all other characters in the category. WiktionariThrowaway (talk) 00:46, 20 January 2023 (UTC)Reply
Any objections? It's been over 2 months. WiktionariThrowaway (talk) 17:09, 26 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Justinrleung any response here? Even as a non-CJK speaker I kind of understand what this category is doing, even though the name feels wrong (it seems like it should be "Han characters derived by breaking" or something). This, that and the other (talk) 07:04, 31 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
Is there a formal name for this phenomenon? If so we should use it. — Sgconlaw (talk) 12:02, 31 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
@WiktionariThrowaway, This, that and the other, Sgconlaw: Sorry for not checking again. I kind of understand what the category is for now, but I do agree that the name of the category looks wrong since the characters in the category are not breakable AFAICT. While 彳亍 is from "breaking up" 行, other uses of 彳 (mostly as a radical) are simplifications of 行 rather than "breaking up" the character. I'm not sure if there's an established name for this phenomenon. @RcAlex36, Wpi31, do you know of any names for this? — justin(r)leung { (t...) | c=› } 15:32, 1 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Justinrleung: ah. Well, it's clear that the category name is wrong, because the category contains characters that are the result of "breaking" other characters, so the first-mentioned characters are not themselves "breakable". My question is whether there is any particular value in having a category of characters that are derived from other characters in this way. For example, if such "breaking" (for want of a better term) is not a common way of forming new characters, then it doesn't sound very useful. The fact that such characters are formed from other characters is already explained in the relevant etymology sections. — Sgconlaw (talk) 15:43, 1 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
「兵」字省掉末筆。乒、乓二字皆為後出新字，當為「兵」字之省形。或以為兵械相碰常缺，故从「兵」省。寫法參「兵」字。: 省形 may be a Chinese name for this, but that usually refers to omission of the entire component rather than what is done here.
I doubt there is a proper academic name for this, not even in Chinese. It seems that all these characters come in (vaguely) mirrored pairs, each constituting half of a common character, so maybe "Han characters with etymologically-related mirror characters" or "Han characters derived from halving a character"? – Wpi31 (talk) 16:07, 1 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Wpi31: yes, but is there even any point in categorizing characters in this way? The category currently has just 14 entries. Are there likely to be more? — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:00, 1 April 2023 (UTC)Reply
There are several examples that aren't even in Unicode, and which may be added in future extensions. I've listed some of them here. WiktionariThrowaway (talk) 18:58, 1 April 2023 (UTC)Reply

May 2023

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Category:Chinese English and Category:Mainland China English

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Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

English. There seems to be some conflation between the two. {{lb|en|China}} categorizes into the former, though people often do meant the latter, which only has 3 entries. For example, typhoon shelter, Hong Kong foot, add oil, and aiya are labelled as both {{lb|en|China}} and {{lb|en|Hong Kong}}.

Also, "Chinese English" technically includes Hong Kong English by the criteria of geography, but linguistically and lexicographically speaking, there is very little influence on HKE from the mainland, which means there are not many instances where we actually need to categorize into both; the existing ones in the category that I'm aware of are (excluding the four already mentioned above) joss stick, Ins, KMT, and ACG. Note that this also causes abominations like the one at ACG, which is meant to include Taiwan as well. (We can ignore Macau for the sake of simplicity, since the English used there is basically a toned down version of formal HKE) – Wpi (talk) 17:29, 30 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

Off-topic: In my opinion, KMT and joss stick are not regional forms of English; indeed, the latter is currently not labelled as such. (Indeed, 'joss' is not so labelled, though it's not part of my active vocabulary.) --RichardW57m (talk) 09:18, 2 June 2023 (UTC)Reply

June 2023

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Merging Category:English terms suffixed with -cide and Category:English terms suffixed with -icide

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Latest comment: 1 month ago6 comments6 people in discussion

Should these categories be merged? Many terms in the -cide categories end in -icide, and thus should be moved, unless we decide not to make this distinction. J3133 (talk) 12:45, 14 June 2023 (UTC)Reply

 Support -icide isn't really even a real suffix, it's just -i- + -cide. Ioaxxere (talk) 00:02, 16 June 2023 (UTC)Reply
What (s)he said. Nicodene (talk) 16:09, 17 June 2023 (UTC)Reply
 Support unless someone comes up with a really good argument otherwise. DCDuring (talk) 16:17, 17 June 2023 (UTC)Reply
 Support. MedK1 (talk) 23:51, 1 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

August 2023

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Category:Ecclesiastical terms by language

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Latest comment: 3 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion

Should be merged into Category:Christianity. Ioaxxere (talk) 17:38, 13 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Ioaxxere No: the category covers terms mainly used by religious figures, not terms that merely relate to Christianity. Many of the terms in Category:Thai ecclesiastical terms, for example, have nothing to do with Christianity. Theknightwho (talk) 22:21, 15 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

(Merged from a request to merge into Category:en:Christianity)
Not clear to me how these are supposed to be distinguished. The boilerplate description at Category:Ecclesiastical terms by language says "terms used only by religious figures", but that's manifestly wrong for the terms at Category:English ecclesiastical terms which are also variously used by commentators like historians or musicologists who may or may not be religious themselves. In reality the category, certainly for English, seems to just contain terms topically related to Christian churches—not just religion in general—and these should be listed under Category:Christianity instead. The "ecclesiastical" label should perhaps also be made an alias of "Christianity". @Andrew Sheedy —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 15:56, 29 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

This is actually already on this page! See Ioaxxere's discussion above. It was pointed out that not all the terms are related to Christianity. However, I do agree that "ecclesiastical" is not the best label. Simply labelling according to religion would be preferable, I think. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 17:42, 29 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Andrew Sheedy: Oops, completely missed that. I'll merge the discussions (and add a template to save anyone else making the same mistake). @Theknightwho The Thai category is very interesting, looking through it, but it seems to be describing a very different thing from the English category—maybe the problem is specifically how the English category is being used? —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 18:03, 29 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
It seems like everything which is in this category would be better off in a specific religion's category or, if pan-religious, in the "religion" category. (But many things currently in the "religion" categories are Christianity-specific, as I raised at Wiktionary:Information desk/2023/August#Christianity_terms_labelled_broadly_"religion" and intend to deal with at some point.) The widespread misuse of the label / category for terms that are better in other categories means we might be better off retiring it, although the other possibility is making it an alias of "religion" and then trying to monitor misuse, which we have to do with "religion" already anyway. - -sche (discuss) 16:33, 6 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
In the Thai case it might be useful to distinguish between terms that are topically relevant to religions and terms used in religious contexts. I'm not convinced that distinction is generally useful, though: stuff like PBUH would certainly fall into the latter category but I think the (Islam) context label does the job (and labelling it "ecclesiastical" would come off as decidedly odd in general). My inclination would also be to merge it in the way you describe, so moving it to the relevant religion(s) or to the overall religion category if it's non-specific, but that leaves more complicated stuff like the POS subcategories at Category:Thai ecclesiastical terms up in the air given that we don't generally do that kind of breakdown for topic categories. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 17:19, 6 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
Do the Thai POS subcategories make any sense or can they simply be deleted? "to kill (a god, high priest, or royal person)." does not seem to be an "ecclesiastical verb"-as-different-from-a-"verb", any more than deicide is an "English ecclesiastical noun", it seems to just include religions figures in its scope. And if specific verbs are only used by Buddhists (or whatever), then using the usual POS categories and then also using {{lb}} would seem to be the normal way of handling that, right? - -sche (discuss) 03:13, 7 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

Category:French terms spelled with K, Category:French terms spelled with W, Category:Spanish terms spelled with K, Category:Spanish terms spelled with W

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Latest comment: 1 month ago6 comments4 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

(Notifying workgroup: Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV, Metaknowledge, Ultimateria, Koavf, PUC, Jberkel, Nicodene): Are these really needed? The letters are a part of the alphabet, even if they're primarily used in foreign loanwords. It's not that rare or notable of an occurrence if they have 1000+ entries (or 4000+ in the first one). I might suggest added Category:Spanish terms spelled with Ü as well, but that one has less than 1000 entries. AG202 (talk) 13:12, 27 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

(Notifying workgroup: Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV, Daniel Carrero, Jberkel, Svjatysberega, Cpt.Guapo, Munmula, Koavf, Sarilho1, Benwing2): : (Apologies for any double pings) I'll add Category:Portuguese terms spelled with K & Category:Portuguese terms spelled with À as well. These categories "are intended for characters not part of the standard repertoire of a language (e.g. Cyrillic characters in English or Latin characters in Russian)". These categories don't fall under that. AG202 (talk) 13:15, 27 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
@AG202 This should be folded into Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2023/August#standardChars_field_in_Module:languages/data/2_et_al. which addresses this exact issue. Let's not vote on this until that's been sorted. I should also note that these don't exclude non-lemmas, which obviously bulks up the figures by a lot. Theknightwho (talk) 15:58, 27 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
Considering that for Portuguese at least, K, W and Y weren't part of the alphabet between until the AO90, I'd actually want to keep these. Furthermore, I feel this category may be of actual interest to readers. Because they're seen as rare and even as foreign, "What words are spelled with K/W/Y" is a legitimate question people ask. I realize they don't exactly fit the standard criteria for these categories though. Maybe it'd be nice to only have the categories include lemmas though? MedK1 (talk) 23:56, 1 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Definitely delete Category:Portuguese terms spelled with Tch though. The category itself is spelled weirdly (shouldn't it be TCH like for JH etc?), the terms are assigned manually for whatever reason, and there's loads of terms missing. MedK1 (talk) 00:00, 2 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

September 2023

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Category:Top-level domain codes et al

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Latest comment: 1 year ago3 comments3 people in discussion

At least some categories which were thought (at the time they were created) to be restricted to a single language exist at "one-off" names, e.g. we have Category:Top-level domain codes and Category:European food additive numbers as direct subcategories of Category:Translingual language, instead of them being name Category:mul:Top-level domain codes and Category:mul:European food additive numbers and being in the set-category system. I have two questions:

  1. If a set category is truly restricted to one language (e.g. Translingual), should we leave it at whatever prefixless name it may have, or move it to "mul:" (or whatever other language code is appropriate) and put it into the "set category" system, even if it only exists for one language?
  2. Do the categories named above actually only exist in one language (Translingual)? Should .გე, .հայ, .한국, etc go in the same category as .de, or would they belong in "ka:Top-level domain codes" (and "hy:", "ko:", etc)?

- -sche (discuss) 23:11, 24 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

@-sche My current tendency is to only create topic and set categories if they exist (or may exist) for more than one language. However, I think is probably the wrong thing to do. The poscatboiler system supports language-specific categories like Category:Bulgarian conjugation 2.1 verbs and I don't see why we can't do the same in the topic category system. (BTW the poscatboiler system now handles all categories of all sorts except for topic and set categories. I've been thinking for awhile of making it handle topic/set categories as well and eliminate the separate topic category system; this would make it possible to consolidate the generic category code into the poscatboiler system, so there's only one unified category system.) For #2, I'm not really sure, but my instinct is that non-Latin-script top level domains should also be translingual. Note for example that Korea created Korean-specific Latin-script TLD's like .kia, .samsung and .hyundai (see .kr on Wikipedia); if these are translingual I don't see why the Korean-script ones shouldn't be. Benwing2 (talk) Benwing2 (talk) 02:22, 26 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
I just added this category to the list template {{ccTLD}} which goes in TLD entries so that all the mainspace transclusions will be in the category. I figured we might as well have the category full until we decide to change it. That means there will be some entries with the category both hard-coded and template-generated. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:34, 12 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

Category:Australian slang -> Category:Australian English slang and similarly for Category:American slang, Category:British slang, etc.

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Latest comment: 2 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Yes, English is the primary language in Australia, the US, Britain, etc. but certainly not the only one. So I propose:

Note that Category:Irish slang refers (logically) to the Irish language, not to Irish English. (For some reason there is no Category:Canadian slang or Category:New Zealand slang.) Benwing2 (talk) 02:05, 26 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

 Support This, that and the other (talk) 02:02, 8 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
 Support —Mahāgaja · talk 08:12, 8 November 2023 (UTC)Reply

Category:Constellations split off Category:Chinese constellations

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Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There are multiple constellation systems, but we only have one category for all constellations - contrast this with Category:Chinese astronomy which is a subcategory of Category:Astronomy. In the label tree there is already {{lb|zh|Chinese constellation}} which categorises into Category:LANG:Chinese astronomy and Category:LANG:Constellations, and therefore makes these categories very messy (see e.g. Category:zh:Constellations where terms ending in 座 are in the European system while the rest are the Chinese ones - I'm in the progress of adding more for the latter). Also note that there are still a bunch more that have been incorrectly categorised, e.g. Ox which has {{lb|en|astronomy}} rather than {{lb|en|Chinese constellation}}, so there would be a decent amount of terms to warrant a split.

I think we can just make said label categorise into Category:Chinese constellations, which would be a subcategory of Category:Chinese astronomy and Category:Constellations. (technically they can be called asterisms but the distinction isn't really clear so I'll just go with constellation) – wpi (talk) 09:19, 28 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

Category:Rest and all lang-specific versions; Category:Sitting and all lang-specific versions

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Latest comment: 2 years ago10 comments4 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

@Victar I don't see the point of Category:Rest. It groups Category:Sitting and Category:Sleep, which don't form a natural category. I also think we don't need a Category:Sitting. This category exists in only one language (Proto-West-Germanic), in which it has only two morphologically-related terms, a verb for "sit" and a verb for "sit on, occupy, etc.". It is better to use affix or root categories to group morphologically-related terms, and it is enough to create Category:Body positions (a set category) to enumerate verbs related to body positions, like sit, stand, lie, crouch, loom, etc. Benwing2 (talk) 07:16, 28 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

Wiktionary lacks a lot basic categories, and as I've been better categorizing West Germanic terms, I've been also porting some categories from Wikipedia for my needs, like Category:Sitting. Category:Body positions or Category:Human positions could also work, but things sit other than humans, which is why I went with Category:Sitting. As for Category:Rest, what would be better recommend for terms of rest that aren't sleep? -- Sokkjō 21:12, 28 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
"Sitting" is not necessarily rest, and it seems too specific to be a category of its own. We don't need categories for every single semantic concept; that would be far too ramified. IMO we need to be parsimonious (which Chrome underlines in red, for no obvious reason) with our categories so we don't end up overwhelming the end user or creating categories that are largely unfilled. I really think you should think about creating larger-scale categories and only create the finer-scale ones when there's a genuine need. (BTW non-humans have bodies too, so Category:Body positions should be fine for animals, and "sitting" in reference to inanimate objects is not the same concept.) Benwing2 (talk) 22:39, 28 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
I hate to vote to delete something that another contributor to this project clearly thought/thinks was a good idea, but I have to agree with Benwing that nothing about grouping "sleep" and "sitting" together as "rest" seems logical or necessary to me; I would delete the "Rest" category, at least as it is presently constituted. "Sitting" is a more plausible category, I would like to see how many terms it could contain: sit (and trivial variations like sit up and sit down), terms like Indian style and criss-cross applesauce, and what else? If it's only a handful of terms, I'm not sure it's useful, but if it's a lot of terms, then sure... - -sche (discuss) 00:33, 29 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@-sche: The idea behind Category:Rest was for terms like rest, relaxation, chill out, etc. Perhaps there's a better name for this category? -- Sokkjō 21:05, 29 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, if we can flesh it out (categorize more entries into it, or list entries that would go in it), I could get a better sense of how useful a Category:Rest would be; maybe it's useful after all. I see Category:Sitting has been populated with a variety of entries. When I add a new category, I try to populate it with entries right away to demonstrate that it could contain a significant number of entries, to head off RFDs (or at least let them proceed based on evaluation of what a decently fleshed out category looks like). - -sche (discuss) 14:05, 30 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
Well, for me, as I don't work in English, filling English categories isn't something I'm inclined to do, but Category:gmw-pro:Rest I can fill up no problem. -- Sokkjō 00:47, 1 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
Took the time to populate Category:en:Rest FWTW. -- Sokkjō 04:07, 1 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Category:Work

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Latest comment: 2 years ago13 comments5 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

User:Victar has been hard at work creating IMO useless categories. I don't see the point of Category:Work, which contains Category:Employment under it. "work" has two definitions in English: "employment" and "effort". If Category:Work is intended to encompass both, it should be split into already-existing Category:Employment and Category:Effort (but I don't see why the latter category is useful). Otherwise it's redundant to Category:Employment. Either way it should be removed. Benwing2 (talk) 07:22, 28 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

I also have a request for you: please let's have a moratorium on further Victar-created categories until we've made sure the dozens you've recently created are needed. Many of them appear to be unneeded or ill-thought-out, and I need to have time to review them individually while you're not adding even more. Benwing2 (talk) 07:27, 28 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
Again, Category:Work is a port of Wikipedia Category:Work. There is work that isn't employment, which is why Category:Employment is a separate category on Wikipedia. I can tell you, none of the categories I've created are "ill-thought-out", and I've put a lot of consideration into them. But please feel free to audit me on any of my addtions. -- Sokkjō 21:20, 28 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Sokkjo We don't necessarily have to follow Wikipedia. I took a look at Category:Work and it has things like make-work job in it that would be better put under Category:Employment IMO (note that busy work, essentially a synonym of make-work job, is under Category:Employment not Category:Work; in general there's no rhyme or reason for the separate categorization as far as I can see). Benwing2 (talk) 22:34, 28 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
Absolutely, we have no imperative to follow Wikipedia, but seeing as their categories are far more extensive and already vetted, it's not a bad starting point. Category:Work contains both Category:Employment and Category:Slavery, which are both clearly distinct, yet still fall under "work". I think there's plenty of "rhyme or reason". -- Sokkjō 08:20, 29 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Sokkjo From looking at Wikipedia's categories, they are a sorry mess, much like a lot of the Wikipedia modules that people wrongly think are a good idea to "port over". They are too ramified and highly duplicative. I would not use Wikipedia as a starting point. You have a point that slavery is a type of forced labor, which is a type of labor, and employment is also a type of labor; so maybe we should rename Work -> Labor, which makes it clearer. (Wikipedia again, in their messiness, distinguishes Work from Labor, but I disagree.) I also see you created 'Slaves' as a topic cat separate from Slavery; this makes no sense at all, so i'm RFD'ing Category:Slaves. Once again I ask you to stop creating new categories until we have a chance to work through the dozens you've already created. Benwing2 (talk) 08:49, 29 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
Category:Labor could work too, but unlike Category:Work, labor/labour can be spelled multiple ways and could also refer to the act of childbirth. -- Sokkjō 20:41, 29 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Sokkjo This is true but "work" also has multiple interpretations, and we say "slave labor", "forced labor" and the like and not normally "slave work" or "forced work". The spelling issue is not a biggie; we certainly have other category names with one spelling or the other (cf. CAT:Organizations, CAT:Visualization, CAT:Vocalizations). Benwing2 (talk) 00:59, 30 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
Maybe some other people can chime in. -- Sokkjō 03:42, 30 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
I agree that we're going to have a hard time making users keep "Work" and "Employment" distinct (and if we rename "Work" to "Labor", then we also have a hard time distinguishing it from Pregnancy / labor). I also appreciate the point that not all work is employment. What if we solve this in the other direction: keep CAT:Work and delete CAT:Employment, which currently contains no entries in any language and no subcategories besides CAT:Occupations? CAT:Employment seems like it does nothing but make users put in an extra click when navigating between CAT:Occupations and CAT:Business (or whatever higher-level category we might decide to put Occupations in). If we make Occupations a subcategory of Work instead, then any work-that's-not-employment could go in Work, as can any employment-that's-not-an-occupation (while still putting anything that does belong in a more specific category like Occupations, or e.g. CAT:Hobbies, in those categories). - -sche (discuss) 14:45, 30 September 2023 (UTC)Reply
I'd support this change. AG202 (talk) 01:00, 1 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
OK, I have recategorized "occupations" from "employment" to "work" (in the module). Because "occupations" categories were the only contents of the "employment" categories for all but three languages, the "employment" categories are now empty. There were only six entries categorized as "employment"; everything else was already in a more relevant category like "occupations". AFAICT, "employment" can now be removed from the module and all the empty "employment" categories which were so useless and unused for so long can be deleted. - -sche (discuss) 17:03, 28 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

October 2023

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Category:Football (American) -> Category:American football

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Latest comment: 5 months ago12 comments8 people in discussion

We have 5 football codes under Category:Football:

  1. Category:Australian rules football
  2. Category:Canadian football
  3. Category:Gaelic football
  4. Category:Football (American)
  5. Category:Football (soccer)

I imagine this was done this way because in the US, "football" universally refers to American football (or occasionally Canadian football, which is quite similar), and never to soccer (except in the names of certain soccer clubs, which often call themselves "football clubs" (F.C. for short) in imitation of European football clubs). But it looks out of place, and Canada similarly refers to Canadian football as just "football" but our category is Category:Canadian football not Category:Football (Canadian). Wikipedia has its article on American football at American football (logically) and similarly for Commons. BTW once we rename Category:Football (American) to Category:American football, we might consider renaming the soccer category to Category:Association football (consistent with Wikipedia), but that's a separate can of worms. Benwing2 (talk) 04:01, 4 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I would think that our contributors could tolerate a lack of parallelism in topical categories where the base terms reflect common usage and the differentia are in parentheses. This seems like overtidying, letting one's own personal preferences for parallelism override broader, user-oriented considerations. The (non)problem only appears in the Category:Football page. DCDuring (talk) 12:16, 4 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
I would've guessed it was done this way so someone typing "Footba..." into Hotcat (or typing "Category:Footba..." into search) would notice that they needed to specify rather than just using bare "Football". I'm not wedded to the current names, but I don't see a compelling reason to change them, either. - -sche (discuss) 05:56, 3 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
Setting aside the soccer request below, the "American football" move seems very obvious and non-controversial. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:23, 23 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
Is the argument for changing Category:Football (American) that US football enthusiasts, not realizing that the primary audience of English Wiktionary is NOT speakers of their dialect, who would be disappointed that there was no category for their "football", are a tiny number of users, not worth worrying about? After all, how likely are such troglodytes to even have the wit to use some listing of categories to find the category of interest to them by using any search mechanism provided? DCDuring (talk) 14:43, 23 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
the argument is that that moving makes all these categories more consistent and follows a natural naming scheme. not sure what all this biting is about. Juwan (talk) 14:50, 23 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
It is about ignoring diversity of user expectations in the foolish pursuit of a kind of consistency that is mostly of interest only to some contributors, not necessarily a larger population of users. DCDuring (talk) 15:12, 23 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
Dude, I have no clue what your deal is. I'm not arguing for some kind of weird American chauvinism, I'm just saying that the term "American football" is a perfectly mundane term that I would actually use as an American when talking about American football. For that matter, yes, having "Football (American)" and "Canadian football" is bizarre and unjustifiable. The part where you mention something about me I guess thinking that non-Americans are subhuman is just weird and gross. Don't talk to me like that. Also please tell me why having the labels "American football" and "Canadian football" is some kind of "foolish pursuit of consistency". What is your deal? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:12, 23 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
 Support the move to CAT:American football and CAT:Association football. Einstein2 (talk) 10:52, 8 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Football categories

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the following categories should be moved for name harmonisation, as well as their child categories.

Juwan (talk) 22:49, 5 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

non-integrated topical categories and what to do about them

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Latest comment: 8 days ago24 comments10 people in discussion

(moved to WT:CLTR) Solomonfromfinland and other users have been busy creating and populating random non-integrated topical categories. I found all of them that are prefixed with en:. The following are my suggestions for how to handle them. Note that "keep" implies integrating them into the topic cat system.

original table from October 2023 (see below for updated table)
Non-integrated category Suggested disposition Actual disposition
Category:en:3D printing Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Accessory clouds Delete? Seems too specific.
Category:en:Allotropes Delete? Seems too general. An allotrope is "Any form of an element that has a distinctly different molecular structure to another form of the same element, with different physical properties and often different chemical properties." Note, we do have CAT:en:Isotopes.
Category:en:Allotropes of carbon Delete? See above.
Category:en:American Revolution Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Australian nicknames for people Delete and move to a POS category 'Australian English nicknames' or similar.
Category:en:Belarusian demonyms Keep? We could potentially have a ton of such categories, and indeed there are several such categories among this list, e.g. CAT:en:British demonyms, CAT:en:Demonyms for Americans, CAT:en:Greek demonyms. Existing integrated categories are Category:Armenian demonyms and Category:Latvian demonyms. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Bestiality Keep?
Category:en:Big Bang Currently in RFD. Deleted.
Category:en:British demonyms Keep? See Category:en:Belarusian demonyms above. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Brothers Grimm Keep?
Category:en:CGS units Keep? We currently have Category:SI units.
Category:en:Chaos theory Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Child abuse Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Circulatory system Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Cities in the Roman Empire Questionable. There was a BP discussion about this which generally concluded we shouldn't have categories like this for former polities.
Category:en:Colonialism Keep? Although several terms in this category don't seem to belong, e.g. Pilgrim, Plymouth Rock, Roanoke, Thirteen Colonies and similar terms related to the colonization of the US; maybe we need a separate Category:en:Colonization.
Category:en:Copernican Revolution Not sure. This category has terms like Newton's first law (and second and third laws), and various terms related to Kepler, Galileo and Tycho Brahe in addition to terms related to Copernicus. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Counties of Australia Keep, I think, but the individual entries (only 4 of them) need to be in subcategories like Category:en:Counties of Victoria (only some Australian states and territories have counties). Deleted.
Category:en:Cryogenics Keep?
Category:en:Demonyms for Americans Keep but rename? See discussion above under Category:en:Belarusian demonyms. Either call it Category:en:American demonyms or Category:en:United States demonyms. Renamed to Category:American demonyms and added to category tree.
Category:en:Deuterium Keep? But some entries are very questionable, like brown dwarf and hydrogen bomb. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Differential equations Keep?
Category:en:Districts of Kerala Keep? Renamed to Category:Districts of Kerala, India and added to category tree.
Category:en:Doujin Delete? I think this is too specific.
Category:en:Dracula Keep maybe? We have Category:en:Benedict Cumberbatch so it's hard to argue that we shouldn't have a category for Dracula. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Element nomenclature Delete and merge terms into Category:en:Chemical elements. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Eponymous political ideologies ??? This has several such terms like Putinism, Stalinism, Trumpism, Bidenism, etc. but seems rather specific; maybe rename to 'Eponymous ideologies' and/or make it a POS category?
Category:en:Eschatology Keep?
Category:en:Exotic atoms Delete? I think this is too specific.
Category:en:Federal territories in Malaysia Delete. Redundant to Category:en:Federal territories of Malaysia (note "of"). Deleted.
Category:en:Fictional materials Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Fractals Keep?
Category:en:Futurology Delete; a mismash of randomness.
Category:en:Genetic engineering Keep?
Category:en:Ghosts Keep? But make a set category and remove the non-set entries. Added to category tree as a related-to category.
Category:en:Graphics Delete, redundant to its parent Category:en:Visualization; or make a set category 'Types of graphs' or similar.
Category:en:Greek Keep? We do have Category:German, Category:English, etc. for various languages, although I don't like this naming convention. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Greek demonyms Keep? See Category:en:Belarusian demonyms above. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Groups of people Delete. Too vague.
Category:en:Harry Potter appendices Terminate with extreme prejudice. Instead, there should be an Appendix page listing the Harry Potter-related appendices.
Category:en:Hell Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:High-speed rail Keep?
Category:en:Hindu mantras Keep?
Category:en:History of science Delete. On the surface seems reasonable but in reality it's a grab bag of randomness. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Hybrids Rename to 'Hybrid animals'.
Category:en:Hypothetical chemical elements Delete. Come on now. Also delete Category:en:Obsolete element names, Category:en:Rejected element names and Category:en:Supposed chemical elements. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Immortality Delete. On the surface seems reasonable but in reality it's a grab bag of randomness.
Category:en:Infinity Keep?
Category:en:Interstellar travel Delete, redundant to Category:en:Space travel.
Category:en:Isaac Newton Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Italian Keep? See comment at Category:en:Greek.
Category:en:Jupiter Rename to 'Jupiter (planet)'; cf. Category:en:Mars (planet).
Category:en:Kuala Lumpur Keep. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Macroenzymes Delete. Too specific and has only two items in it. Deleted.
Category:en:Maglev Delete. See Category:en:High-speed rail above, which is enough IMO.
Category:en:Malaysian politics Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Manifolds Keep?
Category:en:Medical body positions Rename to 'Body positions'.
Category:en:Megastructures Delete. A bunch of sci-fi shit, better placed in other categories.
Category:en:Metallocene I think this is too specific, but maybe should be kept, but renamed 'en:Metallocenes' as it's a set category.
Category:en:Metric prefixes Keep?
Category:en:Metric system Keep?
Category:en:Mikhail Gorbachev Keep?
Category:en:Mobility aids Keep? Maybe? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Moby-Dick Keep?
Category:en:Monarchism Delete, redundant to 'Monarchy'. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Multiracial Delete, already in RFD.
Category:en:Muppets Keep? Names of Muppets. Ugh, though.
Category:en:Napoleonic Wars Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Native American languages Delete. Only one term in it and not a family. Deleted.
Category:en:Nikola Tesla Keep?
Category:en:Non-Euclidean geometry Keep?
Category:en:Obsolete element names Delete. See Category:en:Hypothetical chemical elements above.
Category:en:Obsolete scientific theories Delete. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Overpopulation Keep? Maybe?
Category:en:Paradoxes Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Philosophers Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Physical constants Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Physical quantities Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Plant milk Keep but rename to 'Types of plant milk' or similar as it's a set category. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Pluto Keep but rename to 'Pluto (planet)'; cf. Category:Mars (planet) and Category:en:Jupiter above. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Political parties Keep?
Category:en:Polynomials Keep? But remove the non-set terms.
Category:en:Prefectures of France Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Provinces of Ukraine Keep? Renamed to Category:en:Oblasts of Ukraine and added to category tree.
Category:en:Racist names for continents Shoot on sight. Jesus. Folded into Category:en:Derogatory names for places.
Category:en:Racist names for countries Nuke it. Renamed to Category:en:Derogatory names for countries and added to category tree.
Category:en:Racist names for places Blow it to high heaven. Renamed to Category:en:Derogatory names for places and added to category tree.
Category:en:Radar Keep?
Category:en:Ramadan Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Rape ??? A pretty awful category currently populated with various types of rape and related crimes. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Rejected element names Delete. See Category:en:Hypothetical chemical elements above.
Category:en:Rotation Delete, I think this is too random. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Rudyard Kipling Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Shapes in non-Euclidean geometry Delete? See Category:en:Non-Euclidean geometry above, which is maybe enough.
Category:en:Shapeshifters Delete. I think Category:en:Characters from folklore and Category:en:Mythological creatures are enough. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Ships with acronyms (fandom) ??? We already have a ton of categories related to "ships" (in the fandom sense); do we really need this and the three below?
Category:en:Ships with idiosyncratic names (fandom) See above.
Category:en:Ships with initialisms (fandom) See above.
Category:en:Ships with portmanteau names (fandom) See above.
Category:en:Siblings ??? Has 69 entries in it but fairly random. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Slavic paganism Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Space colonization Keep?
Category:en:Specialists Delete. Only two items, redundant to Category:en:Healthcare occupations. Deleted.
Category:en:Sphere Rename to 'Spherical geometry'?
Category:en:Sports nicknames ??? These are names of sports teams. Not sure these names even meet CFI. Added to category tree.
Category:en:State nicknames of the United States Keep? Deleted.
Category:en:Station codes ??? There was a BP discussion about this.
Category:en:Steel Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Superconductivity Keep?
Category:en:Supernovas ??? Possibly redundant to Category:en:Stars and Category:en:Astrophysics.
Category:en:Supposed chemical elements Delete. See Category:en:Hypothetical chemical elements above. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Systematic element names Keep?
Category:en:Tesselation ??? Seems questionable.
Category:en:Topological spaces Delete, redundant to Category:en:Manifolds above.
Category:en:Tritium Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Trojan War Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Types of chemical element Keep? But rename to 'Types of chemical elements'. Renamed to Category:en:Types of chemical elements and added to category tree.
Category:en:Ukrainian politics Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Units of energy Delete; redundant to Category:en:SI units and Category:en:Physical quantities. Added to category tree.
Category:en:Utopian and dystopian fiction Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Vampires Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Vietnam War Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Vulgar names for cities Fuck me. Delete this. Deleted.
Category:en:Vulgar names for places Likewise. Deleted.
Category:en:Werewolves Keep? Added to category tree.
Category:en:Whaling ??? Maybe? Currently a random collection of terms though.
Category:en:Zombies Keep? Added to category tree.

User:-sche, you might have thoughts about this in particular. Benwing2 (talk) 03:53, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

On a related note, maybe we need a better terminology for the top-level language-independent categories like Category:Mathematics and Category:English. We have confusing differences like Category:English (a top-level topic category) vs. Category:English language (a language POS category), Category:Extinct languages vs. Category:All extinct languages, etc. Benwing2 (talk) 04:17, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, this is one reason I keep coming back to the idea that maybe we should "prefix" all the categories (so all the topic categories get "topic:" added to their name, and all the different types of sets get their own wording like "Named [foobars]" vs "Types of [foobars]", or maybe even "set:Named ..." and "set:Types of ..."); then we'd have "Category:topic:English" for the top-level category — assuming it's intended to be a topic category, anyway; it currently contains a mix of types of English and terms which have some sort of connection to the topic of language and spelling as used by English speakers. - -sche (discuss) 05:40, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
Category:en:Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may be too specific. Most of the entries in the category are a few steps removed from being about the bombings, e.g. trinitite, Manhattan Project, VP Day; if the off-topic entries are removed I wonder if enough relevant entries remain to support a category. (We don't seem to have a corresponding Japanese category, which might have been expected to contain more entries.) - -sche (discuss) 05:40, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
@-sche I've been meaning to make a longer posting about sets vs. names vs. types. I added the functionality to support a type param in the topic definitions, with the values "topic", "set", "name" and "type", with the intention that "set" categories should be converted into either "name" or "type" categories. You can actually put a comma-separated list in type, something like type = "type,topic" for Category:Beards and type = "topic,name,type" for Category:Flags. These are indicative of categories that should be split. One issue I'm running into is that not all set categories can be easily assigned to the name vs. type distinction, or at least it isn't clear which one should be used. For example, Category:en:Heraldic charges contains terms for shapes found on coats of arms, and Category:en:Heraldic tinctures contains terms for colors found on coats of arms (heraldry has its own lingo for colors and shapes). Maybe these are "types" but then the default definition becomes e.g. "English terms for types of heraldic tinctures" which reads weirdly to me and suggests that it should contain generic types of colors rather than specific actual colors. Similarly for all the animal categories, which frequently contain genuses and species; you could argue the genuses are types, but the species seem rather specific for that. I wonder if we should use the terminology "class" instead of "type"; this terminology gets a bit technical but "class" is opposed to "instance", and the class-instance distinction maps well onto what we're trying to accomplish by splitting "types" and "names". Note also that some categories currently have 'type' or a synonym in their name, e.g. Category:Types of planets, Category:Bicycle types, Category:Literary genres (= "types of literature"), Category:Manga genres (= "types of manga", etc.), Category:Musical genres, Category:Film genres, Category:Video game genres, Category:Forms of government (= "types of government"), Category:Forms of discrimination (= "types of discrimination"). Benwing2 (talk) 08:29, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
Maybe even more to the point: Category:en:Diacritical marks, e.g. grave accent, oxia, candrabindu, etc. The current definition says "names of diacritical marks". Are these names or types? Benwing2 (talk) 09:39, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
Oof, yes, that's tricky. I wonder if we should use 'word-then-colon' style prefixes in the actual names of the categories, and add verbiage after "set:" whenever it was necessary to distinguish "specific foobars" from "types of foobars", so "Category:en:set:Types of wars" (civil war, war of attrition, war of conquest, police action, armed conflict, ...), "Category:en:set:Named wars" or "Category:en:set:Individual wars" or "Category:en:set:Specific wars" or whatever (World War I, World War II, Vietnam War, ...), but then some things could just have "set:" without the extra verbiage if we aren't going to split the category, so "Category:en:set:Heraldic tinctures". Technically, we could split individual tinctures like gules and argent and vair off from types of tinctures, but the latter category could only ever contain a handful of entries—metal, colour, stain, fur—so I'm not sure it'd be reasonable to split. If we want to include placenames in the naming scheme, they could also just have "set:" like "Category:en:set:Towns in the United Kingdom". And either {{autocat}} could know to continue to display "English names of [towns in the United Kingdom, etc]" or "English terms for [heraldic tinctures, etc]" when the category name is just "set:" and not "set:Types of..." or "set:Named...", or we could store the information somewhere (the way we currently have Module:category tree/topic cat/data/History etc) that tells it to do that. (This proposal should still work even if we decide to leave placenames — and other names? — where they are.) - -sche (discuss) 22:00, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
@-sche Thanks for your input. All of this makes sense and I think I will proceed for now in trying to clarify the nature of each existing category. Since we are likely to have categories where the type (topic, set, name, type) isn't derivable from the category name (cf. CAT:en:Literary genres, which is probably clearer than CAT:en:Types of literature), I think it makes sense to continue to require that the type field be specified in the definition of each category. The way the code works currently, if the description has the value of "default", it will automatically display "names of", "types of", "terms for various" or "terms related to" + the topic name. You can also customize just the topic name by specifying the description as e.g. "=the {{w|Barbie}} fashion doll produced by Mattel" for CAT:en:Barbie, which will automatically get converted to "{{{langname}}} terms related to the {{w|Barbie}} fashion doll produced by Mattel" since CAT:Barbie is specified using type = "topic". Benwing2 (talk) 22:57, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
Agree with the list, if only in order to obstruct not, though the astrophysical stuff is above my paygrade. If there is something intelligent wrongly deleted I can still create an integrated category.
Keeping Category:en:State nicknames of the United States but deleting the toponymical slurs (“racist names of …”) is contradictory though. If we have ethnic slurs it is very much logical to also have the analogon for toponyms instead of demonyms, but with better name. Fay Freak (talk) 07:57, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Fay Freak The main difference is that the state nicknames are well attested and reasonably common, whereas the various racist toponyms are typically rare Usenet-only terms. For the ones that aren't, CAT:English ethnic slurs is probably good enough. Benwing2 (talk) 08:12, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
Category:en:Allotropes of carbon makes sense - these are all arrangements of carbon atoms and there are many of them; the other allotrope category feels messy, and I would split it by element but that would mean the categories are too small except for carbon. The element names one can be merged into Category:en:Chemical elements. The terms in Category:en:Futurology are all reasonably closely related to futurology, but yes it's a bit of a mish-mash right now - I'm on the fence about whether deleting it or not. Category:en:Tesselation should be renamed to the correct spelling Category:en:Tessellation, if not merging into a less specific category. – wpi (talk) 10:23, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Presumably each category to be deleted will be run through WT:RFDO?
Could we have any simple objective criteria for determining:
  1. when a category should/could be deleted without being run through WT:RFDO and
  2. what should be done with the members.
Categories that are "too small" and whose members are includable or included in other categories (that capture the essence of the to-be-deleted category [Can this be objectified?]) would be examples. A procedure for categorization the members would be desirable. This may not be possible, but perhaps we could at least lay down practical guidelines. DCDuring (talk) 13:10, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
@DCDuring I did it this way because having 136 or so separate entries in WT:RFDO would be overwhelming, but I agree that it would be useful to have some clear criteria for how to decide when a category can be deleted without going through WT:RFDO. Hopefully we can get some consensus on which categories to keep and which to delete through the BP process. I can RFD some of the groups of categories together that I think should be deleted (e.g. the chemical-element-related categories and the "racist/vulgar terms for" categories) but I'm not sure about the one-offs. As for the members of the categories I'm proposing to delete, I can add a column indicating approximately where to move them to, although there will inevitably be some per-category judgment needed for certain entries. Benwing2 (talk) Benwing2 (talk) 23:03, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
It's a good way to start, but there are only about 30 items which you think should be deleted. I don't think that would overwhelm WT:RFDO. Maybe some can be speedied. There also seem to be items for WT:RFC and WT:RFM. Grouping would be nice to help focus, yet generalize, a deletion discussion. BP is the place for policy. If we can tease out some policies or, more likely, guidelines from reviewing a large number of cases, that seems to me like a good use of BP.
BTW, the category system and the use of {{autocat}} do not seem transparent to less-frequent contributors or to aging ones like me. As you know, the result of excessive template opacity is that folks are more likely to hard-code (if they know how) instead of using templates. I believe that those who have trouble and can't work around are likely to fail to contribute or even abandon enwikt as users. DCDuring (talk) 15:31, 11 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
This is a good point, DCDuring. If you follow the instructions in the edit notice at Cat:en:Something and add {{auto cat}} to the page, you see this message:
The automatically-generated contents of this category has errors.
The label given to the {{topic cat}} template is not valid. You may have mistyped it, or it simply has not been created yet. To add a new label, please consult the documentation of the template.
This is doubly problematic: I didn't give a label to {{topic cat}}, I just added {{auto cat}}! And the words "documentation of the template" don't link to the documentation; you're expected to know that you need to click the template name.
And then once you get to the documentation of Template:topic cat/documentation, the page very much assumes you know Lua and how our modules are organised.
Perhaps we don't want the bar to adding topic categories to be too low, but if seasoned contributors like DCDuring are uncomfortable with the process, we have a problem. This, that and the other (talk) 22:20, 11 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
lmao I'm the panphobic "free speech extremist" your mother warned you about, but "Racist names for continents", "Racist names for countries", and "Racist names for places" can surely only have been planted by the CIA or MI5 to try to discredit us. Hilarious. Equinox ◑ 15:33, 12 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
Category:Racist Harry Potter ships with portmanteau names Jberkel 23:02, 12 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

More than 2 years later, many of the entries in the table have been dealt with, or are the subject of ongoing discussions on this page. Here are those that remain unresolved:

Non-integrated category Suggested disposition Actual disposition
Category:en:Accessory clouds Delete? Seems too specific.
Category:en:Allotropes Delete? Seems too general. An allotrope is "Any form of an element that has a distinctly different molecular structure to another form of the same element, with different physical properties and often different chemical properties." Note, we do have CAT:en:Isotopes.
Category:en:Allotropes of carbon Delete? See above.
Category:en:Australian nicknames for people Delete and move to a POS category 'Australian English nicknames' or similar.
Category:en:Bestiality Keep?
Category:en:Brothers Grimm Keep?
Category:en:CGS units Keep? We currently have Category:SI units.
Category:en:Chaos theory Keep? Done Added to cat tree by YeBoy371 in 2025. Einstein2 (talk) 08:15, 8 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Category:en:Cities in the Roman Empire Questionable. There was a BP discussion about this which generally concluded we shouldn't have categories like this for former polities.
Category:en:Colonialism Keep? Although several terms in this category don't seem to belong, e.g. Pilgrim, Plymouth Rock, Roanoke, Thirteen Colonies and similar terms related to the colonization of the US; maybe we need a separate Category:en:Colonization.
Category:en:Cryogenics Keep?
Category:en:Differential equations Keep?
Category:en:Doujin Delete? I think this is too specific.
Category:en:Eponymous political ideologies ??? This has several such terms like Putinism, Stalinism, Trumpism, Bidenism, etc. but seems rather specific; maybe rename to 'Eponymous ideologies' and/or make it a POS category?
Category:en:Eschatology Keep?
Category:en:Exotic atoms Delete? I think this is too specific.
Category:en:Fractals Keep?
Category:en:Futurology Delete; a mismash of randomness.
Category:en:Genetic engineering Keep?
Category:en:Graphics Delete, redundant to its parent Category:en:Visualization; or make a set category 'Types of graphs' or similar.
Category:en:Groups of people Delete. Too vague.
Category:en:Harry Potter appendices Terminate with extreme prejudice. Instead, there should be an Appendix page listing the Harry Potter-related appendices.
Category:en:High-speed rail Keep?
Category:en:Hindu mantras Keep?
Category:en:Hybrids Rename to 'Hybrid animals'.
Category:en:Immortality Delete. On the surface seems reasonable but in reality it's a grab bag of randomness.
Category:en:Infinity Keep?
Category:en:Interstellar travel Delete, redundant to Category:en:Space travel.
Category:en:Italian Keep? See comment at Category:en:Greek.
Category:en:Maglev Delete. See Category:en:High-speed rail above, which is enough IMO.
Category:en:Manifolds Keep?
Category:en:Medical body positions Rename to 'Body positions'.
Category:en:Megastructures Delete. A bunch of sci-fi shit, better placed in other categories.
Category:en:Metallocene I think this is too specific, but maybe should be kept, but renamed 'en:Metallocenes' as it's a set category.
Category:en:Metric prefixes Keep?
Category:en:Metric system Keep?
Category:en:Mikhail Gorbachev Keep?
Category:en:Moby-Dick Keep?
Category:en:Muppets Keep? Names of Muppets. Ugh, though.
Category:en:Nikola Tesla Keep?
Category:en:Non-Euclidean geometry Keep?
Category:en:Overpopulation Keep? Maybe?
Category:en:Paradoxes Keep? Added to category tree. This hasn't happened.
Category:en:Political parties Keep?
Category:en:Polynomials Keep? But remove the non-set terms.
Category:en:Radar Keep?
Category:en:Shapes in non-Euclidean geometry Delete? See Category:en:Non-Euclidean geometry above, which is maybe enough.
Category:en:Space colonization Keep?
Category:en:Specialists Delete. Only two items, redundant to Category:en:Healthcare occupations. Deleted. This, that and the other (talk)
Category:en:Sphere Rename to 'Spherical geometry'?
Category:en:Sports nicknames ??? These are names of sports teams. Not sure these names even meet CFI. Done Added to category tree by Theknightwho in 2024. Einstein2 (talk) 16:20, 4 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Category:en:Station codes ??? There was a BP discussion about this.
Category:en:Superconductivity Keep?
Category:en:Supernovas ??? Possibly redundant to Category:en:Stars and Category:en:Astrophysics.
Category:en:Tesselation ??? Seems questionable.
Category:en:Topological spaces Delete, redundant to Category:en:Manifolds above.
Category:en:Whaling ??? Maybe? Currently a random collection of terms though.

This, that and the other (talk) 05:00, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

As for my views, I agree with the suggested dispositions with the following exceptions:
This, that and the other (talk) 05:00, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
@This, that and the other: Re renaming of Category:en:Hybrids to “Hybrid animals”: non-animal hybrids also exist, which many in this category are (alba, boysenberry, Chehalem berry/blackberry, jostaberry, loganberry, marionberry, nessberry, olallieberry, oroblanco, tangemon, tayberry, topepo, sweetie, youngberry). J3133 (talk) 11:28, 3 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Ports and harbours

[edit]
Latest comment: 2 years ago11 comments5 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

Another User:Sokkjo/User:Victar-created category. Contains only four terms from Proto-West-Germanic, two verbs meaning "to harbor" and the words "port" and "harbor". This is therefore not a set category, not a natural grouping, and too small. These terms can go into Category:Nautical. Benwing2 (talk) 23:42, 12 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Again with the hostility. Port over of Category:Ports and harbours. Not a hard category to fill. -- Sokkjō 23:53, 12 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Sokkjo You are reading hostility where there is none. I simply stated my reasons why I think this category should be deleted. BTW I don't think "could be filled" is a valid reason for keeping a category, nor is "exists in Wikipedia". Benwing2 (talk) 23:55, 12 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
Is this about Category:Ports and harbours or Category:gmw-pro:Ports and harbours? DCDuring (talk) 00:23, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
@DCDuring When I posted this, there was no Category:en:Ports and harbours. If this is made into a set category, I think it's OK but that would entail removing things like "to harbor", coaling, harbormaster and other terms that are not instances of ports or harbors. Benwing2 (talk) 00:49, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
This should be a topics category to various set categories, see Category:Ports and harbours. -- Sokkjō 01:03, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Sokkjo I don't understand what you mean. Why do we need a separate "related-to" category for this? Why can't Category:Nautical suffice, and Category:Ports and harbours be used for types of ports/harbors? And why do you keep referring to Wikipedia? Wiktionary and Wikipedia are very different entities. Benwing2 (talk) 01:49, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
No, CAT:Nautical does not suffice. Have you seen Category:en:Ports and harbours? It took me ten minutes to fill it with terms and there are many more to add that do not belong in a set category, such as CAT:Ports and harbours by country, as you yourself pointed out.
You keep asserting that I shouldn't refer to Wikipedia, but as I said before, the categories on Wikipedia are far more built out then those on this project, and to say they have nothing worth taking as guidance is absolute hubris. So yes, I will be continuing to make comparisons and citing their project. -- Sokkjō 06:07, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Sokkjo Why does CAT:Nautical not suffice? Once you remove the set entries from consideration, the non-set entries are small and can go into CAT:Nautical or nowhere. You seem not to understand that synonyms do not really belong in topic categories; they go in the Thesaurus. If we are to have a related-to "Ports and harbors" category, we need a DIFFERENT set category for ports and harbors. They should not be mixed. BTW under what circumstances will you be willing to admit that one of your created categories doesn't belong? It seems like never. Benwing2 (talk) 06:14, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Keep as a set category (types of ports). Ioaxxere (talk) 07:13, 27 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

Comment: since the category boilerplate and contents are for a topic (not set) category, Ioaxxere's "keep" !vote is functionally a vote to delete the currently-existing category and make a new one with partly different contents that happens to have the same name (repurposing and repopulating it). I'm not sure there are enough types of ports to make for much of a category, though. I almost think the topic category has a stronger claim to having enough entries to merit existing (since terms denoting types of ports are also terms pertaining to the topic of ports, so could go in a "topic:ports" category alongside the various terms like harbormaster and stevedore/longshoreman that pertain to ports but are not types of ports, making for a decent number of entries). I'm on the fence for now. - -sche (discuss) 17:24, 28 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Category:Bricks

[edit]
Latest comment: 2 years ago9 comments7 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

Created by User:Koavf, who then added a bunch of tangentially-related terms to this category, whose only connection is containing the word "brick" in them:

etc.

IMO this is a poster child for what categories should *NOT* be. Benwing2 (talk) 00:26, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Delete: Category:en:Bricks, those should all be in derived terms at brick, not to mention that one would expect examples of bricks to be in a category with a plural name. DCDuring (talk) 00:30, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
Even sandstock is a hyponym of brick. DCDuring (talk) 00:45, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Weak delete. Seems reasonable. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:36, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

RFD-deleted, or rather, ready to delete. @Benwing2 This, that and the other (talk) 09:07, 8 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Category:Cheating

[edit]
Latest comment: 2 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

Created by User:Sokkjo/User:Victar. We already have Category:Deception. Contains only Proto-West-Germanic terms: four verbs meaning "to cheat" or "to deceive", and two tangentially related terms meaning "unloyal" and "adultery". There is no reasonable way to make this into a set category, and the items here should either be listed as synonyms of a basic verb "to deceive", moved to Category:Deception or removed. Benwing2 (talk) 00:57, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

  • Delete Make sure context is appropriately placed in entries. Some of this would belong in a well-designed Thesaurus, if we had one. All of this seems to be the result of our having this ponderous, readily abusable topic category structure without explicit, comprehensive, understandable criteria for their formation and population. Seems to fall under it seemed like a good idea at the time and grow like Topsy. DCDuring (talk) 01:03, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
    @DCDuring I agree. I have done some work recently to clarify the types of topic categories ("related-to", "set", "type" or "name") and include verbiage stating what belongs in the categories, but I completely agree we need some clear criteria for what topics are appropriate. Benwing2 (talk) 01:08, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
    The combination of the {{topics}} and {{autocat}} templates seems highly prone to abuse. At least one or the other needs oversight. I haven't paid much attention because I have no use for such categories. I wonder who does. This will be a matter for BP. DCDuring (talk) 01:15, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Delete. Ioaxxere (talk) 07:13, 27 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

Delete. - -sche (discuss) 18:12, 28 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Delete. I thought it is a gamer category, containing terms like trainer, aimbot and god mode. Fay Freak (talk) 23:53, 28 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Category:Conflict

[edit]
Latest comment: 1 year ago9 comments5 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

Created by User:Sokkjo/User:Victar. This is populated only with a single subcategory Category:War, except for Proto-West-Germanic, where it has a smattering of terms meaning "to quarrel", "quarrel" or "conflict", and a couple other vaguely related terms. These belong as synonyms of a basic term "to quarrel"; terms related to war can be moved to Category:War. This should be deleted and Category:War moved up one level. Benwing2 (talk) 01:05, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Conflict ≠ war and I needed a category for such words. See Category:Conflict (process). -- Sokkjō 01:38, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Sokkjo Why did you need a category for such words? I really think you misunderstand what the topic category system is for. Topics should not be used for vague collections of synonyms; that's what the Thesaurus and Synonyms sections and inline synonyms are for. Benwing2 (talk) 01:47, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
I think this line you're drawing of what's too "vague" is arbitrary and gatekeeping. Higher categories by their very concept are more generalized. Again, war and conflicts are not synonyms. The terms brawl, spat, feud, dispute, rivalry, etc. simply do not belong under CAT:War. -- Sokkjō 06:20, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
Yes, and these are Thesaurus-type items, not topic items. Benwing2 (talk) 06:22, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
Also you keep eliding or confusing the difference between set-type and related-to categories. Benwing2 (talk) 06:23, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
What is the topic category system for in your view? I've been wondering about this for a while. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 23:24, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Delete. Ioaxxere (talk) 07:13, 27 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

Terms like battle and conflict can go in the "war" topic category. I am not sure terms like quarrel need a category; I am not sure there are enough closely-topically-related terms that relating to quarreling but not war to make a sensible non-war conflict category. So, delete. - -sche (discuss) 18:14, 28 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

November 2023

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Category: Hebrew phrases and Category: Hebrew multiword terms

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Latest comment: 8 months ago6 comments4 people in discussion

They seem to be the same. 212.179.254.67 08:39, 13 November 2023 (UTC)Reply

They're not. Not all multiword terms are phrases by our reckoning, and the multiword term category contains more than 10 times as many entries as the phrase category. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:49, 13 November 2023 (UTC)Reply

The descriptions in the categories are

Hebrew groups of words elaborated to express ideas, not necessarily phrases in the grammatical sense.

and

Hebrew lemmas that are an idiomatic combination of multiple words.

If those are different to each other, the descriptions should say how they are different. 212.179.254.67 09:53, 13 November 2023 (UTC)Reply

I agree the descriptions aren't clear, but "phrases" in Wiktionary are a grammatical concept and indicate things that can't be clearly classified as nouns, verbs, adjectives and the like, while any POS can be multiword. Benwing2 (talk) 23:09, 14 November 2023 (UTC)Reply

Then can someone update the category descriptions? 212.179.254.67 15:01, 3 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

The description of Cat:Multiword terms by language now says "lemmas that are a combination of multiple words, including idiomatic combinations". I agree that the description of "phrases" is still a little unclear (but then so is the whole idea of the Phrase POS). Could we add something like "groups of words elaborated to express ideas. These are not necessarily phrases in the grammatical sense, but groups of words that do not naturally belong to another part of speech."? @Mahagaja, Benwing2 This, that and the other (talk) 02:48, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

December 2023

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Category:Shanghainese → Category:Shanghainese Wu, to distinguish from Category:Shanghainese Chinese

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Latest comment: 2 years ago22 comments10 people in discussion

I am re-starting this discussion with a clearer proposal: move Category:Shanghainese to Category:Shanghainese Wu, to distinguish it from Category:Shanghainese Chinese. Support, oppose, comments? - -sche (discuss) 08:04, 28 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

  •  Support. Benwing2 (talk) 01:57, 1 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
  •  Strong oppose. @Musetta6729 and I have discussed this previously in private and have already cleaned up Shanghainese Chinese, which we both found unnecessary as most of the terms in it can be classified as either "chiefly Shanghainese (Wu)" or just plain Shanghainese. As correctly identified previously, the Chinese category contained mostly Wu terms, which we have already dealt with. We have already dealt with the majority of the category's pages, and left four that could also be removed:
    • 鄉下人／乡下人 (shián-gho-gnin), 硬盤／硬盘 (ngan-boe), and 硬盤人／硬盘人 (ngan-boe-gnin) are all generally "xenophobic" terms that can be classed as "chiefly Shanghainese (Wu)" (or something similar)
    • 三環／三环 (sé-gue) is a geographical term that pertains to the city of Shanghai. We can simply remove the Shanghainese Chinese label and deal with it much like the other geographical terms, cf. 筲箕灣／筲箕湾 as just one example
If we implement these two measures, the Chinese category will be completely vacated and can potentially be removed. Even if we do not remove it, I would like for at least some dignity to be given to Shanghainese, as the to-be completely unused label will get the succinct "Shanghai" name while the language of urban Shanghai will be relegated to the term "Shanghainese Wu", which to be frank, we both found somewhat insulting. — 義順 (talk) 12:57, 26 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
@ND381 I am confused why you think "Shanghainese Wu" is insulting, unless you deny that Shanghainese is a variety of Wu. As for the label, that is an orthogonal discussion and we can change it any way we want. Benwing2 (talk) 19:48, 26 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2: Wu is a grouping of languages. No one speaks "Wu". We treat it as part of Chinese for practical reasons, but the Wu languages are quite divergent from the rest of Chinese, and presumably fairly distinct from each other. I suppose they see it as analogous to "English West Germanic" or "Ukrainian East Slavic". Chuck Entz (talk) 20:30, 26 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Chuck Entz If there is a disambiguation issue, I don't see the problem with adding the language family onto the end, compare CAT:Silesian East Central German (to distinguish it from CAT:Silesian language, which is Slavic). Maybe their point is rather that they think just "Shanghainese" should refer to the Wu variety, and anything else have a qualifier. Benwing2 (talk) 20:43, 26 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
I would like to add a bit onto what has already been said here. Shanghai is incredibly complex sociolinguistically, and what is referred to as "Shanghainese" (on wiktionary as much as elsewhere) tends to be the city-centre varieties that developed during the course of the last centuries as a lingua franca between the original Shanghai locals and migrant populations from nearby areas who now constitute a major part of Shanghai.
But Shanghai in fact has a whole range of regional languages - a range of Wu varieties, in fact, which can all be fairly divergent from each other but still very much maintain mutual contact and influence internally. When someone speaks of "Shanghainese", if they don't specify non-city-centre Shanghainese, then one would usually assume they are talking about city-centre or something adjacent to that. But "Shanghainese Wu" feels then more vague somehow as to whether it refers to any dialect, sociolect or topolect that can be considered "a Wu variety of Shanghai which is not necessarily city-centre", a label which is not in itself necessarily useful, and can potentially even be quite confusing in my opinion.
As of now we have been adding modifiers such as "urban" or "suburban" in front of "Shanghainese" when we come across situations where we need to clarify, and that's been working alright. But coming back to the original point, I think it is also just that "Shanghainese Chinese" - which currently is used as "Standard Mandarin terms found in Shanghai" (the language itself not being native to Shanghai, simply spoken in Shanghai for being the official national language) - should arguably not take precedence to the Chinese varieties that are native to Shanghai instead. — Musetta6729 (talk) 02:47, 27 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
This discussion is very much more of a footnote, but the fact that the significantly more irrelevant category gets the label that the language is meant to have (ie. I would prefer for S’nese the language to get "Shanghainese" or even just "Shanghai" like how other non-top level groups/lects are handled) and instead we have to settle for the (intentionally obtuse?) mouthful that is "Shanghainese Wu" — not even Northern Wu à la Quanzhou Hokkien or Hong Kong Cantonese. Again, this is very much not the main point and from your profile I'm assuming you don't know that much about socioling and language politics in the area so it would be I suppose easier to leave the discussion here
The main problem is still just the category: S’nese Wu is unnecessarily obtuse and if we can get back to the point of whether or not we can just clear S’nese Chinese’s four remaining pages we can have a more fruitful consensus — 義順 (talk) 20:34, 26 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
@ND381 Thanks for your comment. I am fine with your proposal to empty the remaining four terms from the category and remove or rename it. Benwing2 (talk) 20:39, 26 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
As there has not been any negative comments regarding the vacating of Category:Shanghainese Chinese, I have removed all four remaining entries in the category.
Regarding the situation of the naming convention, unless there are any further objections, the current Category:Shanghainese Wu should be renamed to just "Shanghainese", and S'nese Chinese is to be either kept as is, renamed to something like "Standard Chinese in Shanghai", or deleted. Of the three options, I believe the last one would be best, as there genuinely isn't a need for it: "chiefly Shanghainese" would cover for most if not all cases of words in Standarin that are used in Shanghai, as those terms almost/always originate from the local variety anyways. Misspellings or Shanghainese-influenced sayings in Standarin that are not found in Shanghainese should perhaps be labelled with "influenced by Shanghainese", if, again, is necessary, which I highly doubt.
For the time being, the "Shanghainese Wu" label will be renamed to "Shanghainese" as per above discussions, and to stay in line with other "-(n)ese" labels (cf. Hainanese, Sichuanese). If for whatever reason S'nese Chinese (ie. Standarin used in Shanghai that isn't "chiefly Shanghainese") is actually needed, unless there are any objections, something along the lines of "Standard Chinese, Shanghai" or "influenced by Shanghainese" (if appropriate) is to be used, though again, there really aren't any words that would warrant this designation. — 義順 (talk) 13:50, 31 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
Apologies for the late reply; I too am fine with renaming or removing "Category:Shanghainese Chinese" (and updating Module:labels). In some similar situations we've used noun forms instead of adjectives to make this kind of distinction, e.g. "Category:Switzerland German" (for de) was renamed to that name to distinguish it from "Swiss German" the Alemannic lect, so if we need a category for "standard Chinese / Mandarin terms chiefly found in Shanghai", it would fit the overall schema to name it something like "Category:Shanghai Chinese"... but if people just don't want such a category, and want {{lb|zh|Shanghainese}} / {{lb|cmn|Shanghainese}} to throw an error and put the entry in a cleanup category so someone can re-code it as a wu entry, that works too... - -sche (discuss) 01:30, 6 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
@ND381 @-sche I have deleted the empty category Category:Shanghainese Chinese. {{lb|zh|Shanghai}} does not currently categorize into Category:Shanghainese Wu, but IMO it probably should, for consistency with the labels Changzhou, Hangzhou, Huzhou, Ningbo, Suzhou, Wenzhou, all of which categorize into the corresponding Wu category (Category:Changzhounese Wu, Category:Hangzhounese Wu, Category:Huzhounese Wu, Category:Ningbonese Wu, Category:Suzhounese Wu, Category:Wenzhounese Wu). ND381 (I think) suggested renaming Category:Shanghainese Wu -> Category:Shanghainese; I am not opposed to this but if we are to do it we should (a) rename some or all of the other *nese Wu categories, (b) come up with a consistent and clearcut rule for which lects get called Foonese and which ones get called Foo Wu (possibly the separation is for major urban varieties vs. all others?), (c) harmonize the resulting category names (whatever they are) to the names of the corresponding etymology-only varieties in Module:etymology languages/data. Also if for some reason we find the need to create Category:Shanghainese Chinese, it should have a corresponding label that makes its scope clear, i.e. NOT Shanghai but either Shanghai Mandarin or Shanghai Standard Chinese, depending on the contexts in which the term is used and found. Benwing2 (talk) 05:00, 2 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Old, less-focused discussion which evinced some support for this:

(Notifying workgroup: Atitarev, Tooironic, Suzukaze-c, Justinrleung, Mar vin kaiser, Geographyinitiative, RcAlex36, The dog2, Frigoris, 沈澄心, 恨国党非蠢即坏, Thedarkknightli, Michael Ly): I have no idea what the intended difference between these two categories is, but in practice there's none. The former gets triggered by the Shanghainese Wu label while the latter gets triggered by either Shanghai or Shanghainese. They should be merged. Benwing2 (talk) 04:03, 11 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Comment: If we are trying to make a distinction, one category should be referring to Shanghainese Wu, and another should be referring to any variety spoken in Shanghai (i.e. both Shanghainese Wu and Mandarin). I don't know if this distinction should/can be made, though. — justin(r)leung { (t...) | c=› } 04:06, 11 October 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Justinrleung: Can 硬盤人 be an example that is used in "general Chinese in Shanghai"? --沈澄心✉ 07:45, 11 October 2020 (UTC)Reply
@沈澄心: Yes, I think so. — justin(r)leung { (t...) | c=› } 07:49, 11 October 2020 (UTC)Reply
I guess the issue then is, do we have native Shanghainese speakers here who can make this distinction? It looks to me like most entries in both categories are Wu terms. Benwing2 (talk) 22:05, 11 October 2020 (UTC)Reply
If we have any entries that make this distinction (and one such entry has been convincingly adduced above), then merger would result in losing information. Do you want Shanghai-specific Mandarin terms to go uncategorised as such? —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 03:26, 12 October 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2, Metaknowledge: @Thedarkknightli probably knows the Mandarin terms and may know some of the Wu terms. For Shanghainese, we have some resources we can consult, so it's the Mandarin terms that are more difficult to figure out. The terms that are in CAT:Shanghainese are Wu for sure (and I would prefer to call the category "Shanghainese Wu" to make it clear). We would need to sift through the CAT:Shanghainese Chinese category to check what's actually Wu and relabel them with "Shanghainese Wu" or just "Wu". BTW, there might be some need to revamp other labels/categories, like "Sichuan" displaying as "Sichuanese" and categorizing to CAT:Sichuanese Mandarin, which could be confusing when we introduce terms in Sichuanese Hakka or Xiang (which we might have some already). — justin(r)leung { (t...) | c=› } 03:40, 12 October 2020 (UTC)Reply
(edit conflict) A native Shanghainese speaker would be User:辛时雨 but he is not very active.
What we lack with regional labels, which is specific to Chinese since the merger needs to work for varieties and subvarieties is the ability to add variety specific categories, {{lb|zh|Shanghai|Wu}} is meant to not only label a term but also categorise it as Shanghainese Wu but {{lb|zh|Shanghai}} is for general Chinese, esp. Mandarin. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:43, 12 October 2020 (UTC)Reply
I think you would need to use {{lb|zh|Shanghai Wu}} or something, not {{lb|zh|Shanghai|Wu}}, since I don't think the same label ("Shanghai") can categorize into two categories. Anyway, add my voice to those saying that if there is intended to be a distinction here, the category names (and, probably, boilerplate texts) should be made clearer. We could also consider "see also"-style crossreferencing them, like Category:Louisiana French and Category:Louisiana Creole French language. - -sche (discuss) 17:26, 13 October 2020 (UTC)Reply
Rename to Category:Shanghai Wu (阿拉) and Category:Shanghai Chinese (硬盤人). —Fish bowl (talk) 06:36, 6 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
list of entries to examine
Special:Search/incategory:"Shanghainese" incategory:"Mandarin lemmas"
Special:Search/incategory:"Shanghainese Chinese" incategory:"Mandarin lemmas"


Category:Coptic terms derived from Greek

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Latest comment: 2 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

Category:Coptic given names from Greek

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Category:Coptic female given names from Greek

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Category:Coptic male given names from Greek

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The way we define Greek and Ancient Greek pretty much excludes any borrowing from the former into Coptic while it was a living language. In fact, after going through the entries in the main category starting with the first letter in the Coptic alphabet I was unable to find any that had modern Greek in their etymologies. These are all due to misuse of the {{given name}} template's "from" parameter: i.e., |from=Greek instead of |from=Ancient Greek. The clincher is that this main category has no borrowing subcategory, while the Ancient Greek equivalent does.

There are still 82 entries left where "Greek" needs to be changed to "Ancient Greek" in the templates, or I might have speedied these myself. It does give us an opportunity, though, to consider what might be done to spot blatant mismatches such as these between the etymology templates and the name templates- maybe not in real time, but as a periodic bot or AWB task fed from the dumps. This is unusual in being categorically 100% wrong, but you can be sure that there are similar errors scattered through other derived terms categories Chuck Entz (talk) 01:58, 25 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Chuck Entz This is an issue that comes up with any language that has a name frequently used to refer to its ancestors: cf. Mongolian, French etc. The real issue is that we need to overhaul our name templates, since they use their own bespoke system that simply categorises entries based on whatever you put in the from= parameter. This is useful when used with things that aren't languages, but with languages it simply causes a headache. Pinging @Benwing2 who may have ideas on how to fix this. Theknightwho (talk) 19:12, 25 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
Yes, let's fix the entries so their etymologies refer to the right language. I agree there are many pairs of languages where we could flag the existence of categories like this as likely in error and something to fix. The reverse case, where a living language is said to have "borrowed" a word from a dead language, is also something to monitor: it's not always an error, because things like ghrelin do exist, but for many dead languages (e.g. Old High German, as opposed to Latin) it's usually an error in my experience. One idea (perhaps there are better ones!) is to have a TODO/monitoring page containing links to every 'suspect' category we can think of, e.g. every instance of a modern language "borrowing" from a dead language (excluding any cases where such borrowing is actually common, like from Latin or Greek) and vice versa (like here, Coptic borrowing from Greek or German or whatnot); if possible, it'd be great to auto-generate the list; even better would be to only generate bluelinks i.e. cases where the category exists; but if it's not possible to auto-generate the list, we can just make a massive page of manually-added links. Users could scroll down the page and check any links that are blue (say, if Category:Russian terms borrowed from Old English turns blue, you know that's something you want to look into because probably someone used "bor" where they should've used "der"). - -sche (discuss) 18:32, 28 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
@-sche @Chuck Entz Here's a couple of ideas:
(1) We start a page like WT:Todo/Lists/Anachronistic etymologies/Chronology which contains the dates between which each language was spoken. For example:
  • English spoken between 1500 and present
  • Old English spoken between 500 and 1066
The dates wouldn't need to be super accurate, but it would make it easy for me to generate a todo list WT:Todo/Lists/Anachronistic etymologies which would contain entries that derive from a language spoken later. There would be a section to list known good entries that should be skipped over.
(2) We start a page like WT:Todo/Lists/Anachronistic etymologies/List which contains pairs of languages where one cannot derive from the other. For example (in reality I would format it as a table)
  • Coptic / Greek
  • Russian / Old English / except bla
WT:Todo/Lists/Anachronistic etymologies would contain etymologies using these "forbidden" pairs.
Thoughts? I tend to prefer (1). This, that and the other (talk) 01:33, 29 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Category:Physical actions

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Latest comment: 1 year ago5 comments5 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

This top-level category has only two bottom-level subcategories: Cat:Hit and Cat:Rub. These should be handled by Thesaurus entries, not by categories. This, that and the other (talk) 01:33, 27 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

Keep, but rename to Cat:Actions. Leave Cat:Hit and Cat:Rub there, but delete Cat:Physical impact. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 23:19, 23 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Delete. Ioaxxere (talk) 07:13, 27 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

Keep. Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 09:21, 25 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

  • Keep: As set categories, cat:Hit and cat:Rub should contain terms for kinds of hits and rubs, and they do seem to. (I don't know any of these languages, but I saw terms defined as "slap" and "kick" as hits and "polish" and "scrub" as rubs.) We could convert them to thesaurus pages, but I think we could convert any set category to thesaurus pages. — excarnateSojourner (ta·co) 00:04, 25 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

January 2024

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Category:CJKV simplified characters which already existed as traditional characters

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Latest comment: 2 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

Several issues:

  1. Not specific to any one simplification system, so it's a random mix of Chinese and Japanese characters without any language-specific indication.
  2. Is it supposed to refer to characters which were unchanged by simplification? Presumably not (since that would include almost all of them), but a strict reading of the name would include them.
  3. What about situations like 再, 𠕅 and 𠕂 where simplified Chinese simplifies all three to the first one?

None of this is explained, and the entries seem to be pretty random. At the very least if we keep this, we should subcategorise by simplification system. Theknightwho (talk) 09:47, 7 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Theknightwho IMO this should be converted to an Appendix with proper explanations, similarly to what User:Nicodene did with Appendix:Survivals of the Latin nominative in Romance (which used to be a collection of categories with explanations provided in HTML comments, where no one saw them). If no one steps up to do the conversion, we should just dump the category contents in an Appendix and delete the category. Benwing2 (talk) 07:37, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
This is definitely a flawed category, but I am very interested in having a category where the characters that are used in both Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, i.e. the characters that WEREN'T simplified, are identified. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 02:04, 12 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

March 2024

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Recategorize terms with "uncertain" etymologies outside of Category:Terms with unknown etymologies by language

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Latest comment: 1 year ago9 comments7 people in discussion

Terms that use {{uncertain}} should have their own category, separate from the terms that use {{unknown}}, as they are on separate levels. There should be a new category like Category:Terms with uncertain etymologies. I'd also personally prefer the term "unclear" over "uncertain," but that's a separate issue. AG202 (talk) 04:45, 31 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

@AG202 What about renaming Category:Terms with unknown etymologies by language to Category:Terms with unknown or uncertain etymologies by language (although I suppose this somewhat nullifies the point of having two templates)? In practice, people are not maintaining the distinction between "uncertain" and "unknown" but use both terms fairly promiscuously. Benwing2 (talk) 05:35, 31 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
The distinction is too vague to warrant two separate categories. -- Sokkjō 03:15, 4 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
I agree there is not enough distinction. I think the distinction some people hope for is "unknown means no-one has any ideas, uncertain means people have ideas" (?), but I'm sure I've seen even other dictionaries use "Uncertain." as the complete etymology for a word they have no ideas about, and conversely I've seen things like "Unknown. Theories include..."; there is no logical or maintainable distinction; if you're not certain what the etymology is, you don't know (with certainty) what it is (you just hypothesize), and conversely if it's unknown you're not certain what it is. I would not object to renaming the category as Benwing proposes, but I would also not object to just merging "unknown" into "uncertain" (or vice versa). - -sche (discuss) 15:55, 4 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
The argument is fallacious because editors regularly do not have precious knowledge about existence and extent of previous attempts, so template application is quite a guess and theology. Given that the different categorization invites wasteful concerns of editors (adding to the learning curve load), I do not only not see the utility of if but also reckon it harmful, and am also sure that Metaknowledge would position himself likewise, as confronted by my argument about underspecified species names vs. uncertain meaning words on Talk:بركة. If you go from unknownness to uncertainty you can also visit underspecification and other more “science-theoretical” details that can only be left to philosophy papers nobody will actually want to write. Fay Freak (talk) 16:27, 4 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. This is not a clear-cut distinction. — SURJECTION / T / C / L / 14:09, 17 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Coming back to this, if the distinction is not clear enough to have two categories, then why have two templates? Could we merge the templates, as @-sche mentioned? AG202 (talk) 02:51, 7 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
Fine with me. We seem to have an apparent consensus for merging (you, me, Victar, Surjection, -sche and I think FF, although as usual his writing is impenetrable). Maybe ask on Discord to see if anyone else has any opinions? If not I can go forward with it. I think the merged template should be called {{uncertain}} because it's rare, at least in well-researched languages, for an etymology to be truly unknown; typically there are various speculations. Benwing2 (talk) 04:22, 7 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree we should merge the templates, as there is no clearly definable difference between an unknown etymology and an uncertain one. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:19, 7 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

April 2024

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Categories for entries "spelled with" Ideographic Description Characters

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Latest comment: 1 year ago11 comments3 people in discussion

Such as Category:Translingual terms spelled with ⿰.

Is there any use to separating these categories by the exact character used? Would it not be better to have an overarching category Category:Translingual entry titles using ideographic description sequences or similar. This, that and the other (talk) 05:23, 5 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

  • @This, that and the other Support. The existing categories are especially problematic when you have multiple ideographic description characters, such as ⿰⿳⿰SIR木阝. However, why are you proposing to use "entry titles" in the category instead of just "terms"? Benwing2 (talk) 06:31, 5 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
    Well, the term itself is not spelled with the ideographic description character. That's just a consequence of the fact the character is not encoded in Unicode. Nobody would consider these characters to be part of the spelling of the term. Moreover, it's ludicrous to say that ⿰亻尭 is spelled with ⿰ when 侥 is not – they are both equally composed of two CJK characters placed side-by-side (not sure of the technical CJK term for that). Compare this to Category:Translingual terms spelled with ◌́, which includes terms that use the combining accent character as well as those using precomposed Unicode characters, hence truly containing all terms spelled with the accent. This, that and the other (talk) 09:31, 5 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
    Hah, I see you didn't actually argue for the use of the word "spelled". Whoops! I guess my argument against "terms" still runs along the same lines though. The terms themselves do not use these sequences, it is their Unicode encodings of the entry titles that do. This, that and the other (talk) 09:33, 5 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
    @Benwing2 what do you think of my (admittedly somewhat confused) points here? This, that and the other (talk) 02:46, 1 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
    @This, that and the other Well, it still seems a bit nitpicky to me. There are no other categories that I know of that use the term "entry titles"; it's either "terms" or "entries". The distinction between "terms" and "entries" is often blurred in any case and I'd rather not introduce yet another term. Overall I'm not sure I really see a problem with a category name like Category:Translingual terms spelled using ideographic description sequences ("using" sounds better than "with" here). We could say Category:Translingual terms encoded using ideographic description sequences maybe if you don't like "spell", but in plain language, "encoding a term using such-and-such characters" *is* what spelling is, and the distinction seems a bit pedantic. Benwing2 (talk) 03:31, 1 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
    @Benwing2 I see this situation as unique, on the grounds that no other category tree picks so heavily on the specific Unicode encoding of the entry title at the total exclusion of the term's actual, human-centred visual appearance or orthography. Even Category:English terms spelled with ◌́ includes titles that use the precomposed characters like é.
    Anyway, I'm not going to press the point any further - a merger is the most valuable outcome here. I'd be satisfied to merge to "Category:Translingual terms spelled with/using ideographic description sequences" or any similar name. This, that and the other (talk) 04:05, 1 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
    @This, that and the other All right. @Theknightwho do you have any opinions here? Benwing2 (talk) 04:07, 1 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
    @Benwing2 @This, that and the other There are two ways to handle these: where possible, I think we should do what Module:zh-pron currently does by constructing the character (e.g. see Category:Chinese terms spelled with ⿰氵厶). Where that isn't possible, either the term is a mistake, or the IDS characters are being used for some other purpose (i.e. the term actually contains them as characters), so they should retain the current separate categories. I can only imagine the latter case coming up with emoticons. What I would oppose would be any kind of category like "terms using IDS" or whatever - the IDS are just a tool to represent unencoded characters; we, as a dictionary, only care about them insofar as they help us create entries, but the terms are in no way actually spelled with them (with the exception of the emoticon example I mentioned before). TTATO isn't being nitpicky by pointing this out, imo - it's actually a crucial distinction. Theknightwho (talk) 04:32, 1 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
    @Theknightwho The reason I proposed this merge is that it seems valuable or useful to have a category keeping track of entries using IDS in their titles - the Han characters using IDS are necessarily unusual or exceptional in some way and it somehow makes sense to me to group them into the category. Splitting by the individual IDS character used doesn't seem worthwhile, but an overarching category may be. (Perhaps farfetched, but I could imagine it being useful for people looking for new Han characters to propose for inclusion in Unicode!) This, that and the other (talk) 04:49, 1 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
    @This, that and the other I have no problem with having an IDS category, but it should be “entries with IDS in the title” or something, not “terms spelled with”, since that’s just factually wrong, as the IDS is only there due to the fact these characters haven’t been encoded yet.
    I don’t think there’s a problem in having separate categories for them - they’re still separate characters in their own right, and the only thing that unites them is the fact they aren’t encoded, which isn’t lexically relevant. Chinese and Japanese already do just fine with them, and the general headword template only creates those categories when the title consists of more than a single character anyway (note that I’m taking a complete IDS sequence to be one character). Chinese and Japanese have language-specific reasons for creating categories for single-character entries, but most (maybe all) our IDS entries wouldn’t create Translingual categories for this reason in the first place. They only exist now because the headword module doesn’t know IDS sequences are special. Theknightwho (talk) 12:30, 1 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

Category:French French and other redundancies

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Latest comment: 1 year ago7 comments5 people in discussion

I propose to rename such categories (e.g. Category:French French, Category:English English, Category:German German, etc.) to less redundant and silly-sounding names. I have already eliminated Category:Spanish Spanish in favor of Category:Peninsular Spanish and am now doing the same for Category:Portuguese Portuguese in favor of Category:European Portuguese, in both cases using the preferred terminology in Wikipedia. (Note: Even though these appear to be slightly changing the scope of the categories, no information is lost as it's merely a recategorization in the labels module. Furthermore, the new category names either didn't exist formerly or, in the case of Category:European Portuguese, had no members.) I propose in general using the country name if there isn't a better/more standard term of some other format, e.g. Category:France French, Category:England English, Category:Germany German. Wikipedia has varying and inconsistent solutions for these cases, namely French of France, English language in England and German Standard German. The format like "French of France" etc. is possible but is inconsistent with the general Wiktionary naming practice of varieties of a given language, which put the language at the end. Benwing2 (talk) 05:46, 14 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Support. "France French" fits existing practice, as you say; we already use nouns rather than adjectives in some other cases, like "Switzerland German" to avoid the ambiguity of "Swiss German".
In fact, now that it's possible to have labels categorize differently for different languages, we could consider changing "Switzerland French" and "Switzerland Italian" back to "Swiss...", since those two are not ambiguous and were just collateral damage of people wanting to rename the German category.
But in the other direction... I wonder if we should consider changing not only "French French" but also e.g. "French Yiddish" to "France Yiddish", and "Vietnamese Chinese" to "Vietnam Chinese": I wonder if we should in general try to avoid categories that look like "[language name] [language name]". But that's probably a bigger discussion... - -sche (discuss) 05:58, 15 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
@-sche OK, I'll change Switzerland French/Italian back to Swiss French/Italian. I should note that there are other cases to prefer the noun country form over the adjective one. For example, there used to be a category 'British Indian English' capturing terms used in British India, but then User:نعم البدل created a label British Pakistani and Category:British Pakistani English intended for terms used by modern British Pakistanis (i.e. British people of Pakistani origin), and that made me realize there could easily be a parallel "British Indian English" consisting of terms used by modern British Indians, so I renamed the existing category to Category:British India English, which is hopefully unambiguous. (However, if we ever create Category:British Indian English for modern usage, it could still be ambiguous, so maybe in that case we should consider either renaming the putative Category:British Indian English to something like Category:Modern British Indian English, or conversely rename Category:British India English to something like Category:Colonial British India English.) Benwing2 (talk) 06:52, 15 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
In keeping with avoiding "[language name] [language name]", we should change CAT:Luxembourgish French and CAT:Luxembourgish German to CAT:Luxembourg French and CAT:Luxembourg German. "Luxembourgish German" especially could be interpreted as being a synonym of Luxembourgish since it is a High German variety (although that term is rarely if ever used, unlike Swiss German). —Mahāgaja · talk 08:20, 15 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
In the vein of "Peninsular Spanish", it occurs to me that "French French" could be "Metropolitan French" (though then people unfamiliar with that term might think it means French spoken in metropolises, so I don't know if that's better or worse than "France French"). "England English" seems to be an actual term I can find in use (contrasted with e.g. "American English" and "Australian English"). - -sche (discuss) 15:52, 15 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
To bring this up again, I saw the labels at Etymology 2 at déjeuner, and I was confused because France and Réunion are both listed, even though Réunion is an integral part of France, just like Hawaii is a part of the United States. It seems very redundant. AG202 (talk) 23:48, 3 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
All overseas territories of France are integral parts of the Republic and they have no dependencies. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:08, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

July 2024

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Category:Japanese syllables and Category:Japanese combining forms

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Latest comment: 2 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

I'm really not keen on these two categories, because they don't really make sense with the way that Japanese is traditionally analysed (and the way we treat it everywhere else on Wiktionary). For instance:

  1. き (ki) is described as "the seventh syllable in the gojūon order", but the etymology section clearly refers to the origin of the kana itself (i.e. the glyph), not the development of the sound in Japanese. The distinction is clearer if you remember that あ (a) and ア (a) are distinct kana that refer to the same mora (a).
  2. キャ (kya) is described as a "katakana syllable", and while it can function as a syllable, if you were to analyse Japanese syllabically, you could rightly say that キャン (kyan, “kiang”) consists of one syllable that can be broken down into two morae: キャ (kya) and ン (n). I don't think anyone would support having a syllable entry for キャン (kyan), though, since there's nothing meaingful about that. This is in contrast to every other language in Category:Syllables by language, where you can't subdivide their syllables into component units (other than letters, in some cases).
  3. Category:Japanese combining forms is used as a kludge to get around the problems caused by calling (full-size) kana syllables, as it's a dumping ground for the kana (and other glyphs) that can't be analysed as syllables. This is mostly okay for vowels like ゃ (-ya), which is described as a "combining form of や (ya) used in yōon mora ...", but it makes a lot less sense with っ and ー, which are full morae in their own right, and therefore function in a completely different way to the small vowel kana. However, because they can't form independent syllables, they've been shoved into the same category. I can also see that 酒 and 水 have been put in there as well, for some reason, which suggests this category just causes confusion at best.

I therefore suggest the following:

  1. Allow a "kana" part of speech (as an alias of "letter", in the same way "kanji" is an alias of "Han character"), which should be used for full-size and small kana. The definitions should refer to the glyphs themselves, so the kana entries for あ (a) and ア (a) would be distinct, since they belong to different systems and have different origins, even though they refer to the same sound. This also goes for any hentaigana etc.
  2. Allow a "mora" part of speech, which should encompass yōon like キャ (kya), but also the gojūon as well, which are written with a single kana. In that respect, きゃ (kya) and キャ (kya) both refer to the same mora, so it's fine for one or other to be an alt form.

As a side point, I also think these entries need serious cleaning up, as I'm not convinced some of these morae actually exist. For instance, ゐゅ (wyu) claims it is "rarely used, with うゅ seeing more use", but is うゅ (wyu) even used in the first place? Seems like someone just got overexcited and created all the theoretical syllables they could think of.

Pinging (Notifying workgroup: Eirikr, TAKASUGI Shinji, Atitarev, Fish bowl, Poketalker, Cnilep, Marlin Setia1, 荒巻モロゾフ, Shen233, Cpt.Guapo, Sartma, Lugria, LittleWhole, Chuterix, Mcph2): . Theknightwho (talk) 21:21, 17 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

I agree that Category:Japanese syllables seems like an inappropriate way to categorize what are orthographic representations of mora. I'm not totally convinced that kana and mora are "parts of speech" in the sense of grammatical roles, but as categories for things in a broad dictionary, they are probably better than calling e.g. え a "syllable". Similarly, the small kana are not "combining forms" in any real sense – though I would argue that things such as 酒 and 水 really are. I think those were categorized automatically because the lemma entries use {{com form}}. So in the latter case, the problem may how the category is currently used rather than the category as such. To the side point, I can't recall ever seeing ゐゅ and can't imagine it being used, but one never can tell. Advertising, for example, sometimes uses bizarre forms to capture attention. Cnilep (talk) 23:31, 17 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Cnilep I completely agreed that "mora" and "kana" aren't part of speech in the strict sense, but I don't think it's possible to craft a definition that excludes them while still including "syllable" or "letter", which we use quite widely cross-linguistically (especially "letter"). If we still want to keep using the "combining forms" category for 酒 and 水 then I have no issue with that, but that's quite a different meaning of "combining form" (more akin to an affix). Theknightwho (talk) 23:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
For my part, the inclusion of 酒 (saka-) and 水 (mi-) in Category:Japanese_combining_forms looks like a mistake, brought on by unclear definitions.
As I understand it, Category:Japanese_combining_forms is intended for combining orthographic forms, while the saka- and mi- readings for 酒 and 水 are combining morphophonemic forms, relating (in part) to still-poorly-understood vowel-fronting behavior seen in certain ancient nouns when used as standalone nouns or the latter element in a compound, versus when used as the first component in a compound; and (in part) to how certain ancient nouns could appear in compounds in abbreviated forms (perhaps the original words? or perhaps as contractions? uncertain).
Similarly, the inclusion of ん in this category also appears to be a mistake -- this glyph is not a combining orthographic form, nor does any such exist (AFAIK).
Not entirely sure how to fix things, however. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 01:32, 21 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Eirikr Do you have thoughts on the initial proposal? Theknightwho (talk) 12:26, 21 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
If you mean the "I therefore suggest the following:" part above about new pseudo-POS headers and consequent entry restructuring, I support your proposal 👍, with the addendum that I think we need to treat combining orthographic forms separately from combining morphophonemic forms, regarding 酒 (saka-) and 水 (mi-).
About the spellings ゐゅ, ヰュ, and うゅ, these are not used at all, as far as I'm aware. Unless we can find sufficient evidence of use, I think we must delete these as imaginary, only-found-theoretically spellings; indeed, the phonetic sequence these purport to spell, /wju/, does not exist in Japanese, and arguably never has. I think we must also delete the related empty categories, Category:Terms_spelled_with_うゅ_by_language, Category:Terms_spelled_with_ゐゅ_by_language, and Category:Terms_spelled_with_ヰュ_by_language. (Apparently there isn't any entry or associated category for the katakana spelling ウュ.) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 17:52, 21 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Eirikr Thanks - good to know. Re the categories, they can be deleted right now tbh, since they’re empty. If we do discover any bizarre terms using those morae and add them, they’ll get populated/readded automatically anyway. Theknightwho (talk) 19:21, 21 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

August 2024

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Category:English terms spelled with numbers, Category:English terms containing Roman numerals

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Latest comment: 1 year ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Should “Category:English terms containing Roman numerals” (and related categories) be renamed to “Category:English terms spelled with Roman numerals” for consistency with “Category:English terms spelled with numbers” (which is in fact only for Arabic numerals)? J3133 (talk) 05:11, 11 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Alternatively “Category:English terms spelled with numbers” should be renamed to an Arabic-numeral category and instead be a supercategory for Arabic- and Roman-numeral subcategories. J3133 (talk) 06:07, 11 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

I am not convinced that there is any need for action on either issue:
  • The "spelled with" categories call out the specific characters used to spell the term, with no concern for what they are being used to represent. The entries featuring Roman numerals in their titles are "spelled with" I, X, etc.
  • Looking at the situation in English in isolation, the term "number" is not ambiguous and changing it to "Arabic numerals" seems somewhat pedantic. The situation could be different in languages which use other systems of numeration, but I'm not familiar with these and can't comment.
This, that and the other (talk) 05:17, 9 December 2024 (UTC)Reply
Compare Category:Latin terms spelled with numbers and its subcategory Category:Latin terms containing Roman numerals; should Arabic numerals be the default “numbers” for all languages? J3133 (talk) 17:17, 9 December 2024 (UTC)Reply


Category:German words ending in -nf

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Latest comment: 1 year ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

2004 moment. Some statistical anomaly. This category is much sillier than Category:English words following the I before E except after C rule, which also got deleted, without my participation. The microscopic interest in this pedantry sumps up to crossword-level language criticism; might have appeared deep when the internet was new.

The claims about the pronunciation of the sequence, enriching that time’s glosses, moreover are largely disinfo preying on the sketchy awareness about the production of speech and its transcription. Contrary to the category description, it is not pronounced /mf/, like at all, but [ɱf]—or just [nf]. Fay Freak (talk) 21:05, 3 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

For better or worse, we do comparably (currently) have Category:English words ending in "-gry" (although see RFM). I have no strong feelings on the matter. I am not opposed to deleting the category; the five words in this set could be mentioned in a usage note at fünf, which is surely the most common of the lot. (Edited to add: I'm fine with keeping it, too. Ideally we should be consistent in deciding whether to have this and the English -gry and -yre categories, or consistently delete them all.) - -sche (discuss) 01:27, 10 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
I don't really see the harm this category's doing, really. Theknightwho (talk) 19:01, 10 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
I am going to de-tag the category and call this kept for lack of any consensus to delete. It would be nice to move the above-mentioned English categories, dropping the quotation marks, for consistency with this and our various affix categories. - -sche (discuss) 22:43, 21 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Removing the "Scottish" from regional varieties of Scottish Gaelic

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Latest comment: 10 days ago20 comments13 people in discussion

I suggest we remove the word "Scottish" from the following categories, as it is redundant and in most if not all cases less common than the name with just plain "Gaelic":

Pinging @SaoiDunNeachdain, Silmethule, Embryomystic, Linguoboy, Crynwrdrwg, Konanen, Moilleadóir, Qwertygiy, TheSilverWolf98; feel free to notify any other Scottish Gaelic editors I haven't thought of. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:28, 23 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Sounds reasonable to me. I agree Scottish in this context is redundant. (Arran Gaelic might be slightly confusing to some due to Aran islands being a Gaeltacht area in Ireland… but I don’t think the impact of this would be significant anyway, the spelling is different and specific dialects of Ireland are rarely referred to with the word Gaelic) // Silmeth @talk 00:00, 24 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
"Canadian Gaelic" might be confusing for similar reasons: without knowing about Scottish immigration in Canada, it might not be clear which Gaelic. Also, I hope the module isn't just tacking the language name to the end of the variety to make the category. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:25, 24 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Chuck Entz: Canadian Scottish Gaelic is the one in the list for which I am most amenable to keeping "Scottish" in the name. And yes, Module:labels/data/lang/gd lists regional_categories = true, which means it is just tacking the language name to the end of the variety to make the category. But we can change it to plain_categories = "Argyll Gaelic", etc. to change the category name. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:39, 24 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
It would seem highly strange to me to have the categories for dialects of a language not contain the actual name of the language. Scottish English is a dialect of English; it's not at all necessary to speak of a given sub-dialect as Glasgow Scottish English. The Scottish is absolutely redundant there. But Scottish Gaelic is not merely a variant or dialect; it's a fully standardized language of its own. To me, logistically, this idea feels somewhat equivalent to, for example, renaming Gotlandic Swedish to Gotlandic Norse.
There's a few other reasons, as well. At least in the United States, Gaelic sans modifier is almost completely synonymous with Irish, unless the context makes it explicit that one is discussing Scottish Gaelic or the Goidelic family as a whole. (Which is why individual dialects would most often be referred to as simply Gaelic; they're not being presented in a multilingual context like Wiktionary.) I feel like the possibility for innocent confusion isn't too dangerously high, given the fairly niche nature of the language and the lack of Irish spoken natively in Scotland; but to Chuck Entz's point, there was also a dialect of Newfoundland Irish, extant all the way into the 1900s, that could rightly be deemed Canadian Gaelic. Qwertygiy (talk) 02:24, 24 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Qwertygiy: It's really a very different case from Gotlandic Swedish. Swedish is never called simply "Norse" the way Scottish Gaelic is frequently – even usually – called simply "Gaelic". As I mentioned above in my reply to Chuck, I am most amenable to keeping the word "Scottish" in Canadian Scottish Gaelic, but even there, I think "Canadian Gaelic" is a more common name for it; and in the literature "Canadian Gaelic" refers only to Scottish Gaelic spoken in Canada. As for Newfoundland Irish, Irish language in Newfoundland says "The Irish language was once spoken by some immigrants to the island of Newfoundland before it disappeared in the early 20th century", suggesting it may have been extinct before 1949, when Newfoundland joined Canada. In that case, Newfoundland Irish really couldn't reasonably be called Canadian Gaelic (quite apart from the fact that it never is). —Mahāgaja · talk 09:59, 24 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Well, we also need to ask ourselves whose standard we want to follow:
For a majority of speakers in Ireland and the UK, saying "Gaelic" automatically and exclusively refers to Gàidhlig na h-Albann, while "Irish" automatically and exclusively refers to Gaeilge na hÉireann. As @Qwertygiy reports, this is not the case in the U.S., where "Gaelic" seems to refer to Gaeilge na hÉireann.
I think it is redundant to denote that Argyll, Perthshire, Uist, etc. are all in Scotland by adding "Scottish", but we should be aware of the fact that this has the potential to cause confusion for less well-informed people.
P.S.: I was never before confused by the term "Canadian Gaelic", because I didn't even think a variety of Gaeilge might have ever been spoken there, but I stand corrected! The potential for confusion abounds everywhere, it seems.
-Konanen (talk) 15:16, 3 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
I really think the potential for confusion is minimal, especially since these aren't L2 language headers we're talking about, but just labels next to terms under a ==Scottish Gaelic== header and the corresponding categories that are all inside CAT:Regional Scottish Gaelic. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:53, 3 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
Ah, well, in that case I am in favour of the Request. -Konanen (talk) 19:04, 5 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
Sounds good to me — these all sound bizarre at the moment, a bit like ParisFrance. ☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 02:26, 25 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
I am cautiously in favour. Gaelic really isn't used to refer to either of the other members of the family (in English), and those category names are what those subvarieties are habitually called (including Canadian Gaelic). embryomystic (talk) 01:38, 28 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Sounds like a good idea. Thadh (talk) 19:46, 3 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
Oppose for the reasons cited by User:Qwertygiy. In general we do include the full name of the language in categories containing varieties of that language, and I at least would find it confusing to see something like Category:Harris Gaelic, as I would not know if this is a variety of Scottish Gaelic or Irish. For similar reasons, varieties of e.g. 'Walser German' should be 'Foo Walser German' not just 'Foo German'. Benwing2 (talk) 09:56, 3 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
You wouldn't be confused for long, since anything in CAT:Harris Gaelic would be under a ==Scottish Gaelic== header, and the category itself would be within CAT:Regional Scottish Gaelic. The comparison with Walser German is poorly chosen, since "German" unmodified refers to a different language (de), while "Gaelic" does not refer to a different language. Or consider the varieties of Regional Ancient Greek, which with the exception of Egyptian Ancient Greek are called "Foo Greek", not "Foo Ancient Greek" (despite the fact that "Greek" unmodified refers to the modern language). I ran some Google Ngrams searches:
In every single instance, the "Foo Scottish Gaelic" variant was too rare to be plottable on an ngram. In the cases not listed above, both "Foo Gaelic" and "Foo Scottish Gaelic" were too rare. There was no case where "Foo Scottish Gaelic" was common enough to be plotted at all, let alone being more common than "Foo Gaelic". —Mahāgaja · talk 10:18, 3 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
I’m not a Scottish Gaelic editor. But what about a compromise like “Scottish (Arran) Gaelic” or “Scottish Gaelic (Arran)”? Just a thought. — Sgconlaw (talk) 11:19, 3 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
A tough one. I feel that a good analogy would be if we called English "Modern English". Then we'd end up with regional categories like "Australian Modern English" instead of "Australian English". This name isn't wrong, nor is it even confusing. It would just be a Wiktionary-ism; readers could easily make the connection to the formal language name and realise why we were using an unusual name for the dialect.
On the other hand, this project has seen fit to call the category "Attic Greek" instead of the Wiktionary-ism "Attic Ancient Greek". I would prefer the latter name, but if we make exceptions for Ancient Greek it's difficult to justify why we shouldn't do so for Scottish Gaelic too. This, that and the other (talk) 14:01, 3 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
I tried to implement this, but the module in charge of {{auto cat}} can't figure out what language "Argyll Gaelic" belongs to, and I don't know how to tell it. I suspect it would work if someone created Module:category tree/poscatboiler/data/lang-specific/gd, but doing so is beyond my comprehension of modules. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:37, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
Given that several people have either expressed outright opposition, suggested alternatives that are don't involve removing the word "Scottish" or given at most grudging acceptance, I would not recommend doing this at all. Benwing2 (talk) 19:28, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply
It may not logistically work but e.g. "Harris Gaelic" is universally used both by linguists and speakers, and e.g. "Harris Scottish Gaelic" is not a phrase anyone uses. If this change is possible without messing up the coding of the site I would strongly recommend this change.
(Apologies, I didn't see this notification before) SaoiDunNeachdain (talk) 23:43, 15 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
I weakly support this: I appreciate the clarity that comes from including the full L2 language name inside the dialect name, but I also appreciate that the shorter names are (overwhelmingly) the usual names in the literature. And regarding the potential for confusion if these don't contain the full language name, besides what Mahagaja has said (that these will be under ==Scottish Gaelic== headers, or in the names of categories whose pages and parent categories say what language they're about), I observe that we don't seem to have an actual requirement that dialects' names must contain their parent language names, and not only are there the above-mentioned examples like "Attic Greek" where the name contains a different language's name, there are things like Category:Geordie that don't contain any language's name. BTW, I also notice that we have "Category:American English" but the subcategories use "US English" ("Northern US English", etc). Also, "Category:South American English" is erroneously categorized under "American English", resulting in the breadcrumbs at the top going "English » Varieties » Regional » North American » American » South". I will start a separate section about that. - -sche (discuss) 04:50, 1 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

September 2024

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Category:Uncomparable adjectives by language → Category:Incomparable adjectives by language and Category:Uncomparable adverbs by language → Category:Incomparable adverbs by language

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Latest comment: 10 days ago8 comments5 people in discussion

Google Ngrams shows incomparable to be over 400 times more common than uncomparable. I appreciate that incomparable is often used with the meaning "beyond compare", rather than "not comparable" but it is trivially easy to find examples of it in use in terms like incomparable adjective and incomparable adverb, while Ngrams doesn't even register uncomparable adjective when I try to compare them ([2]). While it's certainly possible to find some examples of uncomparable being used as a grammatical term ([3]), results for incomparable are much more numerous ([4]).

For some reason, our entry at incomparable had had the "not comparable" sense marked as "rare" by an old admin since 2008 ([5]), so I think the current situation stems from their misconception that uncomparable was the proper term when talking about grammar, which does not seem to be the case. Theknightwho (talk) 01:51, 4 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I agree we should get rid of "uncomparable"; it sounds silly. I'd prefer "noncomparable", which maps very nicely to our label (not comparable). But I could also accept "incomparable". This, that and the other (talk) 02:57, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
I agree and support moving to noncomparable or incomparable. - -sche (discuss) 04:17, 1 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
I would prefer noncomparable to avoid the potential misinterpretation of incomparable. Although Google ngrams does show incomparable adjective and doesn't show a graph for noncomparable adjective, the graph for incomparable adjective shows it's very rare in any case, and noncomparable beats out uncomparable by > 2x. Benwing2 (talk) 04:24, 1 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Driving this point home is what happens if I type in "incomparable adjective" into Google AI. I get this:
An incomparable adjective describes someone or something so good, impressive, or unique that nothing else can compare to it.
Which is obviously not what we intend.
Interestingly, down below it says:
  • Are you looking for ungradable adjectives (like dead or unique)?
So Google AI at least thinks the correct term for "comparable" is "gradable" and the correct term or "{un,non,in}comparable" is "ungradable". What do people think of these terms? Benwing2 (talk) 04:28, 1 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
See also this entry in Teflpedia (TEFL = "teaching English as a foreign language") [6], which prefers the term absolute adjective, giving ungradable adjective as a synonym. (Personally, I don't like absolute here because it's too ambiguous; we have multiple uses of "absolute" in grammar, ala absolute superlative, ablative absolute, etc., and the opposite of absolute adjective is logically a relative adjective, which has a completely different meaning.) Benwing2 (talk) 04:32, 1 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

January 2025

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Category:Nautical

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Latest comment: 8 months ago9 comments5 people in discussion

Not a good name as it is an adjective. Better nautical terms, or sailing 85.48.186.84 23:41, 7 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Please note there was a previous discussion which is archived at “Category talk:Nautical”. I had previously suggested “Category:Water transport” to align the name with “Rail transport” and “Road transport”, but it didn’t gain sufficient consensus. I’m not sure “Nautical terms” is a good alternative; we don’t use the word terms in labels. — Sgconlaw (talk) 23:46, 7 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Suggestions...

  • Category:Nauticalisms
  • Category:Nautical stuff
  • Category:Boating
  • Category:Nautical English
  • Category:Nautics

Lfellet (talk) 22:41, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think we may, once again, just have to leave it as-is for lack of a better name. "Water transport" and "Boating" have the problems pointed out in the last discussion; "Nauticalisms" suggests these are terms used by sailors or people engaged in nautical-ing, but the category says its scope is terms relating to the nautical, even if they're not specific to sailors' jargon, for which reason "Nautical terms" would also be awkward. I assume "Nautical English" and "Nautical stuff" are a joke suggestions. (This is one place where my suggestion of prefixes to distinguish topics vs sets might've helped, "CAT:topic:Nautical" would at least clarify the scope of the category decently IMO.) Unless anyone else wants to weigh in I am inclined to strike this as once again not moved. - -sche (discuss) 00:54, 5 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Nobody has suggested "seafaring" in either discussion yet. How about that? This, that and the other (talk) 05:55, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, could work. - -sche (discuss) 18:32, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
But "nautical" includes the sailing of vessels in inland bodies of waters as well, such as lakes and rivers. I wouldn't call that "seafaring". I don't mind "Nautics" (a new word for me!) since it is a noun, though personally I still prefer "Water transport". — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:31, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Ah, fair point that "seafaring" is also suboptimal. - -sche (discuss) 16:50, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
I don't object to "nautics" although it sounds to me like the science of (studying) sailing, and to the extent that it's defined differently than as a science, it is (as in our entry nautics and the OED's "nautic sb. pl. The art or science of navigation"") defined as navigation, which we treat as a different category. (We also, I see, treat "shipping" as a different category, though I guess we are using that word in the sense that includes non-ship transport. And we treat "Sailing", which has also been suggested as a name for this large category, as a different category.) I get the sense that more than just "Nautical" is suboptimally named: see also the fact that we have we have Road transport" but "Rail transportation", and that (in Category:en:Transport) have all three of "Astronautics", "Interstellar travel", and "Space travel" as separate categories. Maybe Category:Transport needs a bigger overhaul.
At the same time, maybe we also need to think about subcategorizing: Category:en:Nautical is 3,398 entries, including a wide range of things from all ports warning (police warning to ports to look out for someone) to beskozyrka (an item of clothing sailors wear), admiral of the fleet (a military-naval officer / rank), and avcat (a type of jet fuel). I wonder if we could solve or reduce some of our problems by subcategorizing more. Are there enough terms for sailors' clothes to make a subcategory for them, which could be a subcategory of both "Clothing" and whatever we name this sailing category? (beskozyrka, sailor suit, sailor collar, sailor hat, slops, ducks, ... maybe, maybe not.) And shouldn't naval ranks be moved to either Category:en:Nautical occupations or a military-naval (sub)category? Maybe if some of the terms that are less closely related to "water transport" are moved out, we could see whether Sgconlaw's suggestion of "water transport" fit what was left. (If we ever rename to incorporate categories' types into their names, "Category:en:topic:Nautical" would seem sufficiently disambiguatory to me.) - -sche (discuss) 16:50, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:attention lacking explanation

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Latest comment: 1 year ago5 comments4 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

What exactly is this category supposed to be useful for? It has more than 3000 entries in just about every language imaginable. I think it just adds clutter to the category list at the bottom of entries. This, that and the other (talk) 00:53, 25 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I can see two possible uses: to let people who don't add explanations know that everyone will have a way to find out about it, or to allow someone to go through the body of explanationless requests for attention and look for problems with the usage of the template. In the first case, that's pretty much canceled out by the fact that most people don't know the category exists. The second runs into the problem of the lack of context- no tagging for who did it or in which types of entries. To understand what's going on, you have to visit the entries.
I suppose it might let one spot bad usage: e.g. that a particular editor is simultaneously creating lots of stubs in a language they don't know and tagging all of them to shift the responsibility for fixing them to others- but one actually would have to take the time to patrol the newer additions to the category. There are so many other ways to look for problems that I've never bothered to even look at this category. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:19, 25 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
It would seem essential as the supercategory for categories like Category:English terms needing attention (unexplained). But, I suppose that categories like Category:Requests for attention concerning English are sufficiently useful in directing contributors to the entries so tagged. (BTW, not the best category name.) DCDuring (talk) 16:27, 25 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
Delete. Ultimateria (talk) 05:56, 21 February 2025 (UTC)Reply
Keep. This is potentially useful to draw attention to entries that have content problems of a kind likely only readily noticed by a human and not easily otherwise searchable. A review of such entries that led to correction of the problem, better categorization of the problem, or removal of a spurious template would be a better-than-average contribution to Wiktionary IMHO. DCDuring (talk) 15:07, 21 February 2025 (UTC)Reply

April 2025

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Some Category:Telugu suffixes don't start with "-"

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Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I noticed that most languages on Wiktionary start suffixes with "-" but there are some suffixes listed in Telugu that don't start with "-". I think this is because Charles Philip Brown's A Telugu-English dictionary doesn't distinguish root morphemes from affixes with the dash and those entries were just copied into Wiktionary. Some lemmata, like లో, can be used both as a word and a suffix and still keep the same meaning, making this distinction a bit blurry, but other ones, like వు, aren't entire words. Can @Emmanuel Asbon, or @Rajasekhar1961, or anyone else familiar with these pages confirm that this was intentional or if we should move the affixes to indicate that they aren't true words in their own right? A handful of Category:Telugu prefixes also have the same issue. Anivegesana (talk) 02:14, 12 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Japanese-only CJKV Characters

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Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Category:Korean-only CJKV Characters

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If you search for CJKV characters on Google... this category page is the first result! Clearly few or no people outside the wikiverse are using this term. (Also note the odd capitalisation.)

Elsewhere we have Category:Han characters and Category:Han characters by language. Let's rename these cats to Category:Japanese-only Han characters and likewise. This, that and the other (talk) 09:26, 22 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

May 2025

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Category:en:British demonyms, Category:en:Demonyms for Americans, etc.

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Latest comment: 8 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion
Discussion moved from WT:RFDO.

These and the other regional subcats of Category:en:Demonyms are undefined in the category tree and I don't see much point in keeping them, since these can just be intersections of en:Demonyms and en:British Isles, en:America, and so on. For now I'm going to temporarily add support for all of these in Module:category tree/topic/People and move Category:en:Demonyms for Americans and Category:en:Demonyms for Australians to Category:en:American demonyms and Category:en:Australian demonyms for consistency with the other categories. Saph (talk) 15:06, 1 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Adding here a comment from Benwing2 posted in another section:

Category:en:Belarusian demonyms – Keep? We could potentially have a ton of such categories, and indeed there are several such categories among this list, e.g. CAT:en:British demonyms, CAT:en:Demonyms for Americans, CAT:en:Greek demonyms. Existing integrated categories are Category:Armenian demonyms and Category:Latvian demonyms.

This, that and the other (talk) 05:59, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
@This, that and the other I have since changed my mind about this and believe the correct way to handle this is with a combination of CAT:en:Demonyms (etc.) and the appropriate place category, possibly along with CAT:en:Male people or CAT:en:Female people if the demonyms are gender-specific (e.g. Latino vs. Latina and most demonyms in languages with grammatical gender). In fact, {{demonym-noun}} and {{demonym-adj}} categorize in exactly this fashion if you use the <<...>> notation mentioned in the documentation of {{demonym-noun}}. I have been trying over time to get rid of these demonyms by redefining them using {{demonym-noun}} etc. but it takes some work to do so. Benwing2 (talk) 06:08, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
(For reference, it seems this category hierarchy was also discussed under #Continuation of #Category:en:Names into Category:English names, a discussion that began more than 10 years ago!) This, that and the other (talk) 08:41, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

June 2025

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Proposal: "English diaeretic spellings" category

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Latest comment: 1 year ago4 comments4 people in discussion

(See Wiktionary:Tea_room/2025/June#Name for the coöperate form? for background discussion) (moved from WT:BP)

I'm proposing creating a category for handling the "New Yorker style" spellings - coöperate, reënter, reäppearance - where a diaeresis is used between consecutive vowels in compounds and prefixed terms and conventional spelling forms would be closed (cooperate) or hyphenated (co-operate). I think Category:English diaeretic spellings would be useful in the same way that Category:Oxford spellings is - these are forms that are correct in the house style of a few significant and respected publishers, but very rare or incorrect in all contemporary standard Englishes, so it makes sense to flag them specially and group them in one place.

This category would not include loan words like doppelgänger (which is umlaut, not diaeresis) or naïve (which is not a compound and cannot be written as na-ive, and is more widely accepted than coöperate).

The form would be added to Module:labels/data/lang/en (with "dieretic", "diaeresis", "dieresis", "New Yorker" as aliases) and link to Appendix:Glossary where I would add:

diaeretic: Spelled with a diaeresis. Where a compound or affix results in two vowels being placed consecutively, this can be marked with a diaeresis (for example, coöperate). This practice is archaic or obsolete in all standard forms of English, but is maintained by a few publishers (perhaps most notably, The New Yorker). In standard usage, these terms would usually be spelled closed (cooperate) or with a hyphen (co-operate).

This means that if someone typed {{alternative spelling of|en|from=diaeretic}}, it would output "Diaeretic spelling of cooperate".

"diaeretic" is a rare term, but I think linking to the glossary should be enough explanation. Calling it "New Yorker spelling" is an alternative (like "Oxford spelling" as shorthand for "'Oxford English Dictionary spelling") but historically this spelling was used much more widely (spellings like zoölogy were once standard in educated writing) so it feels weird to call out one specific publication.

I think this should be a fairly uncontroversial change, but I just wanted to run it past everyone because it would involve quite a few edits, and we'd need to be clear about edge cases like aërial and zoölogy - my personal feeling is that aërial would not be included, since it occurs within a stem, but zoölogy would be because it's on the boundary between two stems, even though zo-ology is extremely rare and would now likely be interpreted as zoo- + -logy. (FWIW, the New Yorker stopped using aërial in the 1930s, and it usually - but not always - uses zoology instead of zoölogy.) Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:29, 10 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

"Diaeretic" is a really uncommon word, and I'm not sure this is a clearly defined category as described, since "this is commonly spelled with a diaeresis by people who use diaereses" and "this contains a morpheme break" are two different criteria that don't always coincide. Looking at the existing categories such as Category:English terms spelled with ◌̈, Category:English terms spelled with Ï, it's not entirely clear to me which would go in this category and which would not (e.g. intuïtion, reïmmerse, skiïng, egoïsm, vacuüm). I think if we're creating new categories, I would prefer to have them be Category:English terms spelled with ◌̈ (diaeresis) and Category:English terms spelled with ◌̈ (umlaut) as complementary subcategories of Category:English terms spelled with ◌̈.--Urszag (talk) 10:39, 10 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree with @Urszag here in everything said. "Diaeretic" sounds like a type of medicine (cf. diuretic) and is going to confuse more than anything else. There appear to be several different reasons why words may be spelled with a diaeresis/umlaut; they would need to be teased out. There's no support currently for adding a tag to "spelled with" categories of a form like Category:English terms spelled with ◌̈ (diaeresis), but it could be added. Benwing2 (talk) 22:24, 10 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree with Chuck Entz' comment that "spelled with diaereses" or "Alternative spelling with diareses" may be best.
"Those two dots, often mistaken for an umlaut, are actually a diaeresis (pronounced “die heiresses”; it’s from the Greek for “divide”)." [7] I, too, am one of those who did not know a distinction between diearesis and umlaut. One way to write this could be "Alternative spelling using a diearesis" Rather than Diaertic spelling. Trying to differentiate the umlauts and diaereses, and having a common parent category for them would be valuable for helping readers understand and study the usage patterns. The effort to classify each word would really help people understand these words much better. It brings to mind Lüeyang and similar, which I believe has an umlaut. My guess is that umlaut spellings are more likely to be printed today than diaeresis spellings? Geographyinitiative (talk) 22:48, 10 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Splitting Category:Uzbek terms in Arabic script

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Latest comment: 1 year ago9 comments5 people in discussion

This category makes no distinction between the Yangi Imlo Arabic-script orthography used in the Uzbek SSR during the 1920's, and the modern Arabic-script orthography used in Afghan-Uzbek/Southern Uzbek. Could we split this category into e.g. cat:Afghan-Uzbek spellings and cat:Yangi Imlo spellings (or any other names)? Preferably both categories would be subcategories of Category:Uzbek terms in Arabic script. Luckily, the script being used is typically marked in {{uz-variant}}, so it should be easy to tell which is which. — BABR・talk 01:14, 11 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

There is also cat:Afghan Uzbek, which I could use, but it seems to have lemmas instead of alternative forms. — BABR・talk 01:21, 11 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Babr I took the liberty of moving this topic to WT:CLTR. I think better names might be Category:Uzbek terms in Arabic script (Afghan-Uzbek) and Category:Uzbek terms in Arabic script (Yangi Imlo). If we follow this general scheme, the category tree code can automatically make them subcategories of Category:Uzbek terms in Arabic script. Benwing2 (talk) 01:57, 11 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2 those names are fine by me, but I'd prefer if there was a shortcut to easily search for Afghan-Uzbek without typing in such a long name... but if that's not possible then I suppose I'll just deal with it. — BABR・talk 18:43, 12 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Babr We could potentially put a category like Category:Uzbek terms in Afghan-Uzbek Arabic script underneath CAT:Afghan Uzbek, if that makes logical sense. I don't know if something similar could be done for Yangi Imlo, as I'm not very familiar with Uzbek dialects. Also, IMO the names need to include the language and script in them for clarity. Maybe the names could be restructured to have Yangi Imlo and such at the beginning but that definitely makes the category tree code trickier; if we were to do that, it should be done generally so that we maintain consistency in naming. Benwing2 (talk) 20:36, 12 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
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This is off the immediate topic, but while trying to think whether the Uzbek situation was analogous to—and thus could be named similarly to—anything else, I noticed two things: Category:Oxford spellings is a subcategory of Category:British English, when maybe it should be a subcategory of Category:British English forms? And similar to the situation with Uzbek, Category:Romanian Cyrillic spellings does not currently differentiate "pre-1860s" Romanian spellings like нє, and "post-1930s" / Moldovan spellings like вис, so if we start subcategorizing different Uzbek orthographies, let's also consider subcategorizing Romanian ones (and perhaps we can find better labels for the Romanian orthographies; both dates are suboptimal), and consider whether to switch Romanian to the "Language terms in Foo script" category system (rather than "Language Foo [script] spellings"). - -sche (discuss) 05:10, 11 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Maybe Category:Romanian terms in Cyrillic script (Moldavian) vs. Category:Romanian terms in Cyrillic script (archaic)? I use "Moldavian" not "Moldovan" because the spellings were (with the exception of Transnistria, which is consciously retro) only in use during the time of the Moldavian SSR. The names could also be Category:Romanian terms in Moldavian Cyrillic script and Category:Romanian terms in archaic Cyrillic script or something (maybe even Category:Romanian terms in archaic Romanian Cyrillic script, but that is a bit redundant). I agree that going by dates is suboptimal as the dates are only approximate.
As for Category:Oxford spellings, IMO it should be renamed to mention the language in question, maybe Category:British English Oxford spellings or just Category:English Oxford spellings. Benwing2 (talk) 05:39, 11 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Better yet, we should have a policy that excludes the ‘archaic Romanian Cyrillic script’. It is a vastly inconsistent and unstandardised writing system used across wide time intervals, there is no lexicographical precedent to including it, and there is no benefit in bothering with it. The handful of entries we have in it should be deleted.
P.S. нє is wrong, it should be не. That’s how regular е looks in Old Cyrillic. ―⁠K(ə)tom (talk) 09:40, 11 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I heartily disagree with excluding the archaic Romanian Cyrillic spellings. If they're attested, they should be included. We aren't paper; there's no reason to prevent an interested user from finding the word they're looking for, just because it's in "a vastly inconsistent and unstandardised writing system used across wide time intervals". —Mahāgaja · talk 10:53, 11 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
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Latest comment: 1 year ago5 comments3 people in discussion

Japanese and Korean have a bunch of terminology related to hanafuda (a type of playing cards, also known as hwatu), some of which have been added to Wiktionary. A dedicated hanafuda category would probably be useful, to make such terms easier to find and organize. So I suggest adding the following to Module:category tree/topic/Games: 

labels["hanafuda"] = {<br/>
	type = "related-to",<br/>
	description = "=[[hanafuda]] playing cards, also known as [[hwatu]]",
	parents = {"card games"},
}

I've noticed that Module:category tree/topic/Games already includes a "Go-Stop" category, which is the most popular hanafuda game in Korea. This category seems to currently be entirely unused (or at least, Category:Go-Stop, Category:ko:Go-Stop and Category:en:Go-Stop all contain no pages), and I think any Go-Stop-specific terminology probably wouldn't be out of place in a more general hanafuda category, so I'd suggest removing the Go-Stop category from the module. But if we're keeping it, we should change its "card games" parent category to "hanafuda".

Lastly, I noticed that there is a "karuta" category, which has some problems. Karuta are a category of card games of Japanese origin that include hanafuda, but in common parlance the term often refers specifically to the game of uta-garuta, and right now it's ambiguous which of the two meanings of the word the category is about. (Currently, all terms in Category:ja:Karuta seem to be related to uta-garuta specifically.) We should probably either unambiguously make the category about uta-garuta by changing its description and perhaps rename it, or move the terms to a new uta-garuta-specific category, and have "karuta" be the parent category of both "uta-garuta" and "hanafuda". I'm not sure how useful it is to have such a parent category including both, as the two classes of games are quite different and don't seem to have a lot of terminology in common. As far as I know, other types of karuta games aren't nearly as popular, and any terminology for those games could maybe fit well enough under the "card games" label. But I'm not sure what would be better. Spenĉjo (talk) 00:20, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Spenĉjo I moved your request to WT:CLTR, where these sorts of requests are normally handled (the Grease pit is for technical issues, and the Beer parlour is for policy issues). I don't know anything about these games, but your request sounds reasonable. How many terms currently exist in Wiktionary related to hanafuda? Generally we'd want there to be at least 10 terms in at least one language for it to make sense to have a dedicated category. As for the specific topics, I think it makes the most sense to have two categories for hanafuda and uta-garuta that are directly under card games, rename the existing Category:ja:Karuta to Category:ja:Uta-garuta, and remove the Go-Stop topic. Benwing2 (talk) 05:06, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for moving it to the right place, I'll remember it for the future. I can currently find the following 18 Japanese hanafuda terms on English Wiktionary: 親, 子, かす, 猪鹿蝶, 脱衣花札, 立直, 松, 梅, 桜, 藤, 菖蒲, 牡丹, 萩, 芒, 菊, 紅葉, 柳, 桐. In Korean, I only managed to find one: 풍. (It is currently the sole entry in Category:ko:Karuta, but it could easily be moved to Category:ko:Hanafuda.) Japanese Wikipedia also has a list with dozens more hanafuda terms at 花札#用語, of which I was considering adding some of the most notable ones to Wiktionary. Spenĉjo (talk) 07:20, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
 Support Spenĉjo's proposal with options per Benwing2. 0DF (talk) 12:43, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Spenĉjo: Re the terms at w:ja:花札#用語, please feel free to add any and all terms that satisfy the criteria for inclusion. BTW, is your username in Esperanto? 0DF (talk) 12:43, 17 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
(Off-topic replies moved to User talk:Spenĉjo)

"outdated" or "no longer used" parent category/label of "obsolete", "archaic" and "dated"

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Latest comment: 1 year ago16 comments4 people in discussion

@Vininn126 @-sche Pinging a couple of people who may have opinions, but opinions are welcome from all. We currently make a distinction between obsolete, archaic and dated, and have both terms and forms categories for each, with the forms category (e.g. Category:English archaic forms) being a subcategory of the terms category (e.g. Category:English archaic terms), and the terms category a subcategory of terms by usage. Unfortunately this three-way distinction is problematic in many languages because the respective dictionaries don't make such a distinction. For example, Russian dictionaries label all such terms indiscriminately as устар. approximately meaning "outdated" or "no longer in use". For Russian in particular we've followed the principle of using the dated label to translate устар., but I think this gives a misleading impression as many of these terms are not merely dated but are archaic (less likely obsolete; obsolete terms are often left out of dictionaries entirely except for historical-minded dictionaries like Dal's). I'm thinking we can create a label outdated (or maybe no longer used), which is restricted to certain languages (or at least not allowed for English), and is used to translate устар. and similar notations for other languages. The corresponding category would be either Category:English outdated terms or Category:English terms no longer in use or something similar, and it would be the parent of the three obsolete, archaic and dated categories. (Possibly "outdated" is better for this purpose than "no longer used" because archaic and especially dated terms are indeed sometimes still used.) Thoughts? (BTW Happy Juneteenth; we had a major parade through our neighborhood this morning.) Benwing2 (talk) 21:36, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

The solution is for editors to use their own judgement. And to learn what we mean by dated, archaic and obsolete, of course. ―⁠K(ə)tom (talk) 21:49, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
The problem is that this is impossible for someone like me who is not a native Russian speaker. This assumes that all editors are native speakers of the language they're editing, which is not in practice the case. Benwing2 (talk) 22:26, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
And even for native speakers, they are unlikely to be sufficiently familiar with older literature and poetic language, etc. to be able to make such a judgment. That's why we rely on dictionaries to tell us this. Benwing2 (talk) 22:31, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Speaking of dictionaries: in my experience, even the best and most modern are so behind the times as to not tag terms which are dated (by our standards) in any way. When a dictionary tells you a word is archaic/obsolete, then you know it’s for real. ―⁠K(ə)tom (talk) 22:43, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I also have some thoughts on the way the affective character of the ’dated’ and ‘archaic’ labels lead to their failing to cover and accurately describe the totality of not-entirely obsolete vocabulary, making necessary the use of {{lb|now|uncommon}} and possibly its spinning off onto a category separate from ‘uncommon terms’—but that’s probably just an entirely personal issue. ―⁠K(ə)tom (talk) 21:56, 19 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Polish dictionaries are not always regular with this either. WSJP more matches our system, where PWN and Doroszewski uses just daw. I prefer having a three-way distinction because in my opinion there clearly is one, I'd most just change "archaic" to "archaicizing". Vininn126 (talk) 08:19, 20 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I understand you want to preserve the 3-way system, but what do you do when it just says 'daw.' or 'устар.'? Do you just put "archaic" and hope for the best? That seems questionable. Benwing2 (talk) 08:34, 20 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
It depends on the source and attestability. I match WSJP, if it's only from PWN I check {{R:pl:NKJP}} to see. Vininn126 (talk) 08:49, 20 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'll add also that with older dictionaries it's easier, as they tend to be obsolete; also that I do see the benefit of a catch-all, not necessarily because of other dictionaries, but rather due to editors themselves poorly distinguishing them. Perhaps a two-way distinction, outdated vs archaicizing. Vininn126 (talk) 09:05, 20 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
You are lucky to have a dictionary that makes the distinctions ... I haven't yet come across a single Russian dictionary that distinguishes them. Benwing2 (talk) 17:40, 20 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Vininn, if we were going to have just a two-way distinction, wouldn't it be better to group "(out)dated" and "archaic(izing)" together on one side, and have the other side be "obsolete"="no longer used at all"? It seems easier to ascertain (through RFV if needed) "do citations more recent than such-and-such cutoff date exist?", and thus whether the term is on the "obsolete/unused" side of the line or not, than to ascertain whether a still-used term's connotations are merely dated / outdated or are fully archaic / archaicizing.
@Benwing, what if we add a label but treat it as a cleanup category that a native speaker will ideally come along and specify as either dated or archaic, maybe even have the label display "dated or archaic"? (I'm not sure what to have the label input itself or the category name be; should that too just be "dated or archaic"?) To avoid T:orthographic borrowing- and smoug-type problems (that whenever something exists for one language, people who don't know why it exists try to invent ways to apply it to every other language), perhaps we only allow it for certain languages? - -sche (discuss) 06:14, 21 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm not sure about that, as archaicizing is an active part of the language, whereas dated/obsolete are more "passive", if that makes sense. What I mean is that dated/obsolete are indeed on a sliding scale, whereas archaicizing is a separate process (that is a word being used intentionally to evoke an old sound, which is not the same as a word falling out of use). Vininn126 (talk) 06:55, 21 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
If there is still a desire to do this, I would like to repeat the suggestion that instead of trying to come up with a term that implies there is a fourth separate category of words which are neither dated nor archaic nor obsolete, we embrace and lampshade the ambiguity we're trying to deal with, and have the label (even if the typed input is shorter) display, and the category be named, "dated or archaic", and treat it like a cleanup category which a native speaker will ideally come along and sort into "dated" or "archaic". - -sche (discuss) 20:02, 20 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
(Alternatively, if we rethink our treatment of "archaic" and/or "obsolete" overall, for all languages and situations, that might obviate this; as I pointed out in the BP, our definition of "archaic" is ""No longer in general use, but still found in some contemporary texts that aim for an antique style, like historical novels."", but historical novels may use period slang even if they're set in a recent era—a novel set in the 2000s might use 2000s slang, does that make 2000s slang words "archaic"? De facto, in terms of how people actually use the label, seemingly no, even though de jure yes.) - -sche (discuss) 20:02, 20 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@-sche There has been some discussion about this on Discord. The upshot seems to be that "dated" is OK as a general term for non-English terms that are no longer in general use but still usually recognized by speakers, whereas "obsolete" should be used for terms that have completely fallen out of use and are no longer recognized by speakers (generally these are identifiable by not being in contemporary dictionaries at all unless they specifically aim to record such words). The consensus seems to be that "archaic", as in the definition you cite, is for terms that intentionally evoke an antique style, and for that reason @Vininn126 believes it should be renamed to "archaicizing". The more specific use of "dated" for English terms, especially slang ones, that are of your grandfather's generation or whatever and evoke an "out of touch" feeling when heard, is too specific for use outside of English, and we should update the definition of "dated" accordingly. Benwing2 (talk) 20:27, 20 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Module:category tree/topic/History Ottoman Empire

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Latest comment: 1 year ago5 comments4 people in discussion
Discussion moved from Wiktionary:Grease pit/2025/June.

The Ottoman Empire label references the Near East label which doesn't seem to exist. I think it should be updated to Ancient Near East, but the page is edit protected. — Naomi Amethyst 00:54, 21 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

@NaomiAmethyst: just relocating your post to this new page, where such requests are now to be posted. — Sgconlaw (talk) 13:26, 21 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
Looking into this, it seems like the "Ottoman Empire" category itself is unused...? Is that entry in the module unused, or what am I missing? Could we just delete it, or aren't there enough terms related to it that someone should create the category? To the original question, I suspect it's "Near East" rather than "Ancient Near East" because it's a relatively non-Ancient polity. - -sche (discuss) 17:24, 21 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@-sche @NaomiAmethyst Only one page uses the Ottoman Empire label, which is سنجق. You can see that by going to Special:WhatLinksHere/WT:Tracking/labels/label/Ottoman Empire. Benwing2 (talk) 20:33, 21 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
OK, I have at least temporarily removed "Near East" as a parent, to enable the "Ottoman Empire" category to be created, since it seems to have enough entries, like CAT:en:Roman Empire etc. I am less sure the {{label}} itself is needed. - -sche (discuss) 17:42, 23 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

merge Category:English short forms and Category:English shortenings (and likewise for other languages)

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Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Category:English short forms is generated by {{short for}}, while Category:English shortenings is the parent category of "short forms" and all other sorts of abbreviations, ellipses and the like. The problem is that "short forms" is completely ill-defined; all members of this category need to be cleaned up and categorized properly as an ellipsis, clipping, acronym, abbreviation or other type of shortening. I propose simply dumping anything coming out of {{short for}} into the parent category (and creating an abuse filter warning people against new uses of {{short for}}, but that's a different matter). Benwing2 (talk) 04:16, 26 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Adding a label for dubbing/voice-over

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Latest comment: 1 year ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Since just {{lb|LANG|film}} is a bit lacking, I wanted to propose a new category just for dubbing. It would be under Module:category tree/topic/Culture: 

labels["dubbing"] = {
	type = "related-to",
	description = "[[dubbing]], the replacement of a voice part in media",
	parents = {"film", "television", "video games"}, --not sure if we put it under each one or just "mass media"; also just realized there isn't a topic cat for "translation" :/--
}

And the corresponding label in Module:labels/data/topical, although I have the perms to create this one myself: 

labels["dubbing"] = {
	aliases = {"dub", "voice-over"},
	display = "[[dubbing]]",
	Wikipedia = true,
	topical_categories = true,
}

In English, it would have at least nine entries—dub, dubbing, fandub, fandubber, fandubbing, revoice, voice acting, voice actor, voice-over—but some of them may be a bit of a stretch. Trooper57 (talk) 16:35, 29 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Trooper57: is "sound engineering" (which already exists) too broad for this purpose? — Sgconlaw (talk) 16:38, 29 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Sgconlaw: hmmmm. For dubbing it would be fine, but I don't think things like dubber and voice actor would fit so well. I actually proposed this thinking of languages that have a bigger dubbing culture and thus have more specific terms, like anel and loop in Brazilian Portuguese. Trooper57 (talk) 16:53, 29 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
 Support this category, plus a "translation" category and label. how come we don't have the latter already! pinging @Sgconlaw to complete this. Juwan (talk) 20:18, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

July 2025

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Category:Virtual reality

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Latest comment: 1 year ago3 comments3 people in discussion

I request that a category (under "Technology") and a corresponding label be created for lemmas related to virtual reality. 

labels["virtual reality"] = {
	type = "related-to",
	description = "default",
	parents = {"computing"},
}

labels["virtual reality"] = {
	aliases = {"VR"},
	display = "[[virtual reality#Noun|virtual reality]]",
	Wikipedia = true,
	Wikidata = "Q170519",
	topical_categories = true,
}

Juwan (talk) 20:12, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@JnpoJuwan See the discussion below on extended reality. Do we need both and if so should extended reality be a parent of virtual reality? Benwing2 (talk) 04:40, 11 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2 "extended reality" as a hypernym should likely take priority here. as future-proofing, the label should have aliases for AR, MR and VR. will update it in a bit. Juwan (talk) 12:50, 11 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Hearts

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Latest comment: 5 months ago7 comments4 people in discussion

this proposed topical category is primarily intended for translingual entries, see all the heart emojis. Juwan (talk) 13:53, 20 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

If I saw this category, I would think it related to the card game hearts rather than to heart-shaped characters. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:12, 21 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I thought the same when I read the template's name. @Juwan, I suggest changing it to "Heart Emojis", or adding it as a child of an "Emojis" (or suchlike) category, which likewise ought to avoid confusion and name-conflict. Bytekast (talk) 03:43, 29 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
would "Heart symbols" be good? Juwan (talk) 08:31, 29 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
i think so, that's a more specific (and disambiguating) name, and there are many such symbols (e.g. ♥ ❦ 🫀), not only emojis — we can see them all here
Bytekast (talk) 19:43, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
all good by me. Juwan (talk) 21:06, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
 Support Category:Heart symbols. Einstein2 (talk) 19:48, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Non-rhotic pronunciations

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Latest comment: 1 year ago15 comments5 people in discussion

I have just created the {{non-rhotic}} template; I request:

First such subcats:

Bytekast (talk) 03:36, 29 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

(Notifying workgroup: Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV, Daniel Carrero, Jberkel, Svjatysberega, Cpt.Guapo, Munmula, Koavf, Sarilho1, Benwing2, SinaSabet28, MedK1): this may be of interest for Brazilian Portuguese editors. Juwan (talk) 21:08, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
This all seems reasonable to me. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:19, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I did not realise how many people are in the Portuguese workgroup. this ping (besides bringing some admin attention, which are the ones who can actually add these) was to inform of the new template and category, as Brazilian Portuguese also has non-rhoticism in some varieties. Juwan (talk) 21:35, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think 11 users who have explicitly asked to be pinged is reasonable. As an aside, for those who are familiar with (e.g.) Italian and Spanish and don't know about how Portuguese phonology is substantially more complex, here is an extremely long read on the Portuguese R: https://web.archive.org/web/20241121114210/http://hackingportuguese.com/pronunciation/portuguese-r-the-long-version/ —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:47, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Brazilian Portuguese can have a very soft R at times and be often non-rhotic. In my native dialect it sounds nothing short of an aspirated vowel (midword) and disappears at wordends; a good example is carpir ([kaʰpi] vs standard /kaʁˈpi(ʁ)/, “to weed”).
Yes, overall Portuguese phonology (European especially) is pretty tricky, with its nasalizations and Rs; perhaps that has helped me to master the even more complex phonology of English (and to read French and German)?! As in, a phonologically complex tongue's native speakers are privileged at learning and using foreign phonology, should they have an interest in that. For example, most Far East Asians have a hard time learning our R — or, depending on the language, L — sounds, which don't exist in their language; likewise, it is difficult for us to learn Chinese tonality. Bytekast (talk) 23:38, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
It needs to be made clear that what's being categorized here is spellings indicating non-rhotic pronunciations. Since we don't have entries for pronunciations themselves, obviously we can't categorize things like /stɑːt/ and /nɔːθ/. Others that could be added to the group are English gal from girl, ass from arse and bass (the fish) from Middle English bars. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:35, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Well noted! I'll add those too. Bytekast (talk) 06:40, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
My point is that Portuguese words (for example) would only be categorized if there are spellings indicating non-rhotic pronunciations. For example, if an author from Portugal wanted to indicate a Brazilian pronunciation, might they use spellings like cahpih? And if so, are such spellings common enough that we have entries for them? For German, there are a few like Mudda and Vadda for Mutter and Vater. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:51, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Well, I've seen some. Especially for BrPt, which is much more nonrhotic than EuPt. For the -ir infinitive, not so much, but for -ar, definitely! Just replace it by -á, indicating [a]; e.g. cantar (“to sing”) → cantá (often informally misspelled as canta, which is another conjugation entirely and ought to be pronounced with an unstressed A). There's also milhó (from melhor (“better”)), an eye dialect from the Northeast of Brazil. Then there's the as-of-yet colloquial form of para/pra (“for”), pronounced and written pa. Oh, and pade, the nonrhotic form of padre (“priest; Father”), in e.g. Pade Cíço (Padre Cícero, Father Cicero), from the Northeast (again), whose dialect I think is the most nonrhotic in the land. Bytekast (talk) 07:00, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Or to be more precise, nonrhotic-pronunciation spellings, or non-rhotic pronunciations for short (which is why I chose that name). Of course it won't categorize IPA text — no category does! So it's fine there. Bytekast (talk) 06:52, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree with Mahagaja that if the aim is to categorize "non-rhotic pronunciation spellings" like pade or gal, the category needs a name like that, with "spellings", in line with other Category:Pronunciation spellings by language, not "non-rhotic pronunciations" which sarsaparilla, dirt, mother, etc also have. (So, the category name needs to be fixed.) It does seem like enough languages have this kind of thing that it could be a category. - -sche (discuss) 20:17, 23 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think so too. That's more accurate. Also maybe the output text should be changed, say, to "Non-rhotic pronunciation spelling of", or "Represents a non-rhotic pronunciation of" (as I have already mentioned and suggested here). Bytekast (talk) 21:47, 23 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Why is {{non-rhotic}}, mentioned at the start of this section, showing up as one of the templates used on sadism, and categorizing that entry into Category:English non-rhotic pronunciations? Ah, I see: it is because of a bewildering edit by Arko100, a clear example of the phenomenon which has plagued many Wiktionary templates over the years: if a template generates vaguely the kind of link, or italicization, or whatever that a user is looking for, they will use that template even if it makes no sense. - -sche (discuss) 20:17, 23 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Fascinating. Those new users just need to pay more attention to the wikisource code and read the [fine] documentations out there, as did I. Perchance they will, over time, if they stay. Bytekast (talk) 21:06, 23 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

August 2025

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Category:Pants

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Latest comment: 1 year ago9 comments7 people in discussion

this category due to its name (judging by the entries in Chinese) seems to have some overlap with Category:Underwear. I propose that it be renamed to "Trousers" (similar to Wikipedia) to avoid this ambiguity. Juwan (talk) 23:12, 2 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Reasonable. Support. BTW the default category description currently incorrectly links to pant. - -sche (discuss) 00:13, 10 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@-sche: Fixed. J3133 (talk) 06:56, 15 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Juwan @-sche Many of the Chinese entries are (sometimes marginally?) viewable as "pants" but not as "trousers", such as sweatpants, yoga pants and hot pants. IMO it's reasonable to group all lower-body pant-type outerwear (i.e. not skirts, which have their own Category:Skirts), but I'm not sure what to call it if not "pants". Benwing2 (talk) 05:15, 15 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Legwear? We currently define it as a synonym of hosiery, but I don't think it is, because legwear includes trousers and excludes socks, while hosiery includes socks and excludes trousers. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:02, 15 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Sounds good to me. Benwing2 (talk) 06:09, 15 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
 Support for this switcheroo. Juwan (talk) 10:40, 15 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Somehow it did not occur to me that "legwear" includes trousers—to me it connotes things like leg warmers and stockings—but if others understand it to include trousers I have no objection. As always, I suggest that the scope of the category be clarified with a usage note. — Sgconlaw (talk) 11:16, 15 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Toki Pona dictionary categories

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Latest comment: 8 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

There are several categories for Toki Pona words based on how often they are used and recognized.

They are not yet properly integrated in the category tree.

I think this should be the category tree.

Netizen3102 (talk) 06:05, 4 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm on the fence. I can certainly see the benefit of these cats in the context of Toki Pona, but also, an appendix might as well suffice. This, that and the other (talk) 08:51, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:en:Extended reality

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Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Discussion moved from Wiktionary:Grease pit/2025/August.

We need a unified category for all XR-related terms like Category:en:Artificial intelligence does. The XR industry has lots of technical jargon like sweet spot and screen-door effect, and we need to categorize all XR-related industrial jargon terms in there. 67.209.129.67 19:46, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Can you give me a list of such terms? sweet spot in its current definition, for example, doesn't sound specific to extended reality but seems to apply to photography as a whole. We also have no Category:Virtual reality, which is much more well known at the present time. Benwing2 (talk) 04:28, 11 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Instant messaging

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Latest comment: 1 year ago6 comments3 people in discussion

together with Category:Social media, instant messaging has become a very important part of our lives. this category would be a subcategory to 'telecommunications' and 'internet'. it is not to be confused with Category:Text messaging slang by language. Juwan (talk) 10:38, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@JnpoJuwan No objections in principle, but can you give me a list of terms that belong in this category and don't also belong in Category:English text messaging slang? Benwing2 (talk) 04:20, 11 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Also can you give me your opinion on Category:Virtual YouTuber, created by @Fish bowl before WT:CLTR came into existence? I'm not really familiar with virtual YouTubing but this category doesn't smell right to me. Shouldn't we instead have a more generic livestreaming category? Benwing2 (talk) 04:25, 11 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2 this category is supposed to include terms that are related to instant messaging, so it would include formal terms about it (I will create a list soon).
regarding [[Category:Virtual YouTuber]], it looks about right, English and Portuguese have appropriate terms and so do Chinese and Japanese from the little knowledge I have of either. Virtual YouTubers have a lot of specialised slang (many from Japanese), compare Twitch-speak and idol groups (this category should maybe be a subcat of both!). in my opinion, this justifies having a specific category; the amount of terms present is also very small, I should look into filling that gap in the future. Juwan (talk) 23:59, 11 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Juwan Thanks. Regarding Category:Virtual YouTuber, would a better name be Category:Virtual YouTube, Category:Virtual YouTubing or Category:Virtual YouTubers? Something doesn't sound quite right to have it in the singular like this. Benwing2 (talk) 03:24, 12 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2 I'd say [[Category:Virtual YouTubers]] would be good. Juwan (talk) 10:58, 12 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:art-nav:Avatar

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Latest comment: 1 year ago5 comments4 people in discussion

Category:art-nav:Pandoran animals

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Should these Naʼvi categories be deleted or added to the category tree? (Pandoran refers to the fictional moon Pandora in Avatar.) J3133 (talk) 11:42, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

There is no current support for language-specific topic categories, and I believe there probably shouldn't be. There are only 3 entries in Category:art-nav:Avatar and 5 in Category:art-nav:Pandoran animals, which isn't really enough (yet) for there to be categories created, and if we do create a category e.g. for Pandoran animals, it should probably be called "Fictional animals" so that it can apply cross-language. Benwing2 (talk) 04:16, 11 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Apologies for getting off the initial topic, but this sent me down a rabbit hole. I agree there are so few entries in these categories that I see no advantage to categories (just use ===See also=== on the entries, if necessary). And I agree there aren't enough terms for Pandora-specific animals to sustain a category. In fact, I'm not sure there are enough even to sustain a "fictional animals" category, since so many terms which could theoretically go in that category either fail WT:FICTION or aren't really "animals" (but rather sentient beings), e.g. we don't have an entry for Porg/porg, and our entries Wookiee and Dalek are in Category:en:Fictional characters (and our entry Klingon is in Category:en:Celestial inhabitants), which seems more appropriate than "Fictional animals" — although renaming that to something like "CAT:en:Fictional creatures" might be even better, because "Fictional characters" makes me think the category is for specific named characters. (Category:en:Characters from folklore contains both specific characters like John Henry, and generic creatures like the rye wolf.) BTW, we also have Category:Mythological creatures, which has some overlap with "fictional animals"/"fictional creatures" and (especially) with "characters from folklore" and other "folklore"-creatures cats. (There are some terms e.g. porg which are obviously from fiction and not mythology/folklore, and other terms like ghost which obviously originate in mythology/folklore, but whether a hard split between mythology and folklore makes sense requires more thought.) And then there's Category:English terms with origins in folklore, containing only Mankayan due to Template:folklore, which feels like one person's ill-advised and failed experiment; I have RFDO'd it. - -sche (discuss) 06:21, 11 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@-sche I agree that "characters" not quite right. A character is a specific person (or sometimes anthropomorphized animal) in a story, whereas a "creature" can be generic. However, "creature" may not be quite right either, because we normally think of creatures as animals, but under "Characters from folklore" we have humanoids like zombies, vampires and werewolves. Maybe it should be "fictional/mythological beings"? I'll create a new topic down below as we've strayed from the discussion of Avatar. Benwing2 (talk) 03:35, 12 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@-sche Now that you say it, Mankayan's etymology is more suited for its actual originating language and not English. I have now fixed that, thank you. — 🍕 Yivan000 viewtalk 12:04, 24 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:zh:Provinces of China

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Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion

This category is used in some pages Banovercheckcross (contribs✔✘) 21:43, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

We already have Category:zh:Provinces and autonomous regions of China that is used for categorizing provinces. There are only a few terms in this category, which are manually categorized and are a random mixture of former provinces, groupings of provinces that should rather go under Category:zh:Geographic and cultural areas of China, etc. Benwing2 (talk) 04:10, 11 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:en:Anglo-Saxon deities + Category:en:Anglo-Saxon mythology

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Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Request to add categorization for Anglo-Saxon deities and mythology, like Category:en:Norse deities & Category:en:Norse mythology.

in Module:category tree/topic/Culture: 

labels["Anglo-Saxon deities"] = {
	type = "name",
	description = "default",
	parents = {"gods", "Germanic deities", "Anglo-Saxon mythology"},
}

labels["Anglo-Saxon mythology"] = {
	type = "related-to",
	description = "default",
	parents = {"mythology", "Germanic mythology"},
}

2600:8805:905:6C10:DD68:F59F:EA41:9461 22:46, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Do we have enough terms to fill these categories? Anglo-Saxon mythology isn't very well documented compared with Norse mythology, and possibly the existing Germanic mythology/deities categories are enough. Benwing2 (talk) 04:07, 11 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Entry-containing categories which aren't in the tree

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Latest comment: 8 months ago8 comments5 people in discussion

...which we need to either mass-remove from entries, or add to the tree:

- -sche (discuss) 07:42, 30 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@-sche: Module:en-headword was recently changed by Benwing2 to add the “English nouns construed as singular or plural” category automatically if “sp” is used.
Re “Toki Pona words included in Toki Pona: The Language of Good”, compare “Words approved by the Akademio de Esperanto” and its subcategories. J3133 (talk) 04:55, 31 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
If Category:English nouns construed as singular or plural is being added by our templates, intentionally, then the category should exist, and either support for it needs to be added to the modules, or it needs to be allowed to exist without {{auto cat}}. (The same phenomenon can be found in some other languages, so probably the first option is preferable.) - -sche (discuss) 21:46, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I've added a few to modules and removed a few from the above list (mostly prior to seeing said discussions). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:10, 8 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Struck those which have been added to the category tree or emptied. Only 4 geography categories are left. This, that and the other (talk) 09:00, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I created the category Places in Moravia. Though not a current administrative division of the Czech Republic, I think it's useful since traditional historical division(Čechy/Morava/Slezsko) in Czech is still prominent. Chihunglu83 (talk) 09:29, 16 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

September 2025

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splitting Category:Music

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Latest comment: 1 year ago28 comments12 people in discussion

Category:en:Music has 3,870 terms (?!). We have Category:en:Musical notes, which has things like sixteenth note and quaver (I would have thought F-sharp is a musical note as well, but apparently not), but we need a shitload more set categories. I suggest:

  1. Category:Musical notes: Rename to Category:Musical note values or Category:Musical note durations. This holds terms for note durations such whole note, half note, quarter note, double whole note and corresponding British terms like quaver, crotchet, breve. (FYI "note value" is Wikipedia's term; I have studied Classical piano for 12+ years and have not obviously encountered this term. I just ambiguously call them "notes" but I didn't really study music theory super formally in school.)
  2. Category:Musical rests: This is the corresponding set of rests to the notes/note values/note durations of the previous category: half rest, quarter rest, British terms like crotchet rest, etc.
  3. Category:Musical tones or repurposed Category:Musical notes or Category:Musical scale notes: F-sharp, D-flat, E, also solfège notes like do/ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti/si.
  4. Category:Musical keys: F-sharp minor, E-flat major, etc.
  5. Category:Musical scales: major/major scale, minor/minor scale, natural minor scale, harmonic minor scale, melodic minor scale, pentatonic/pentatonic scale, whole-tone scale and many others.
  6. Category:Musical modes: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian and many variants like hypolydian, hypomixolydian, etc.
  7. Category:Musical chords: major triad, dominant seventh chord, half-diminished seventh chord, ninth chord, Picardy third, Neapolitan chord (BTW we are missing Neapolitan sixth/Neapolitan sixth chord) etc.
  8. Category:Musical intervals: fourth, fifth, sixth, augmented sixth, diminished sixth, tritone, octave, etc.
  9. Category:Musical clefs: treble/treble clef (aka G clef), bass/bass clef (aka F clef), tenor clef, alto clef (both types of C-clef/C clef), etc.
  10. Category:Musical tempos: largo, lento, adagio, andante, andantino, moderato, allegretto, allegro, vivace, presto, prestissimo, etc.
  11. Category:Musical dynamic values or some related name: pianissimo, piano, mezzo piano, mezzo forte, forte, fortissimo, fortississimo, etc.
  12. Category:Musical articulations: legato, staccato, sforzando, pizzicato, glissando, arpeggiato, etc.
  13. Category:Musical tempo changes: accelerando, ritardando, rallentando, stretto, stringendo, rubato, meno mosso, più mosso, etc.
  14. Category:Musical dynamic changes: crescendo, decrescendo, diminuendo, smorzando, calando, morendo, etc.
  15. Category:Musical vocal ranges (update: we have Category:Musical voices and registers): soprano, alto, tenor, bass, mezzo soprano, baritone, basso profundo, treble, countertenor, etc.
  16. Category:Musical time signatures (update: we have Category:Musical meters): four-four time, three-four time/three-quarter time, cut time/alla breve, common time, six-eight time (which we are missing), twelve-eight time (likewise), etc.
  17. Category:Musical ornaments (maybe there is a better term): trill, shake, mordent, tremolo, vibrato, slide, arpeggio, etc.
  18. Category:Musical mnemonics: FACE, EGBDF (= every good boy does fine, every good boy deserves fudge, and other variants), ACEG (= all cows eat grass, all cars eat gas, etc.).

There are surely others (e.g. we need to split Category:Musical instruments even more than it currently is), but this comes to mind first. Benwing2 (talk) 10:27, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

CAT:Musical genres? Vininn126 (talk) 10:31, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
We have it, you just misspelled it :) Benwing2 (talk) 10:35, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
I see my coffee and ADHD meds haven't fully woken me up yet... Vininn126 (talk) 10:37, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
lol! Benwing2 (talk) 10:38, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

OK some more:

  1. Category:Musical composition forms (need better name): song, instrumental, rock opera, ... (for popular music); prelude, etude, sonata, symphony, fugue, cantata, toccata, fantasy, mass, requiem, opera and a zillion others for classical music
  2. Category:Musical composition parts (need better name): verse, chorus, bridge, fadeout, ... (for popular music); movement, trio, exposition, recapitulation, coda, etc. for classical music
  3. Category:Musical chord progressions: Axis progression, backdoor progression, circle progression, 50's progression/'50s progression/ice cream changes/doo-wop progression, twelve-bar blues, eight-bar blues, etc.

Benwing2 (talk) 20:24, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree subcategorization is needed! I am hesitant about whether people will grasp and maintain the intended distinctions between all of "tempos, dynamic values, articulations, tempo changes, dynamic changes, ornaments". Do we think the average user adding e.g. an -issimo term a year from now will expect/grasp that it goes in one category if it's more similar to prestissimo "very quickly", but a different category if it's more similar to fortissimo "very loudly", and intuit that a term like allegretto vs one like accelerando, or a term like accelerando vs crescendo, vs vibrato vs staccato, go in five separate categories? I am unsure. Maybe anyone who is dealing with musical terminology does perceive these as fundamentally different categories of direction and will have no problem maintaining the distinctions. But I wonder whether some of these should be consolidated into something like "musical directions" / "musical directives", or "musical changes" grouping tempo and dynamic changes. - -sche (discuss) 20:41, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for opening this topic. I generally agree with your decisions. I am fairly knowledgeable in classical music and you're welcome to contact on Discord with questions. A few naming suggestions: 1. Musical note durations (or values is fine). 3. Musical pitches. 7. Name is okay but a bit awkward, maybe just Chords or Musical chord types. 11. Musical dynamics. Fold 13 and 14 into Musical directives, as outside of the most obvious set, there is a lot of subjectivity involved (some terms may indicate changing both tempo and dynamic at once, or are ambiguous/up to interpretation). I wouldn't mind if a word goes in both Musical directives as well as another category.
Re: items 1 and 2 for the second list, I feel it would be sensible to split classical from popular, partly because their meta-terminology (i.e. what "form", "genre", "part", etc. even mean) is quite different, and because I think users are more likely to want to use a list specific to their domain of interest than a miscellaneous one. If not, then Musical composition types and Musical composition sections. Since the situation is tricky, I don't have fully-formed thoughts right now on split-classical/popular category names beyond Classical music composition types/sections. I'll note that classical "genre" often encompasses many but not all items of 1(c) (whereas popular "genre" encompasses e.g. reggaeton and sludgecore); classical "form" encompasses sonata form, rondo, strophic, binary form, etc., and the two blur and are often confused; and classical composition "parts" without other context often refers to a musician's role e.g. "the violin part" – see first 3 bullets at Part.
I'm not that concerned about people grasping this setup. With a good structure (which Benwing has proposed), I feel confident that average users can either look at similar entries and copy by analogy, or otherwise do whatever and it's not the end of the world for entries to await a bit of cleanup. Hftf (talk) 21:28, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thanks! I agree with all your suggestions, and I think splitting classical from popular in the first two items of the second list makes sense. The third item about chord progressions also seems mostly to refer to popular music; classical music seems to speak of cadences, which maybe should be a different category (see w:Cadence for an exhaustive discussion). @-sche I think that in practice, people familiar with music theory will understand the distinctions of the categories, esp. if the descriptions are clear, and they are more likely to be the ones adding music terms. I suspect people not familiar with music theory who add a music term will be more likely to just put it under Category:Music, regardless of whether we have a more ramified category tree or a less ramified one. Having a more ramified tree has the advantage of allowing people to more easily grasp the distinctions between categories if they're not clear about them, and there are more than enough terms to fill even a highly ramified tree. Benwing2 (talk) 22:01, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply
 Support to apply Benwing and Hftf's proposals. Juwan (talk) 13:40, 9 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Musicians: rename and add Category:Musical artists?

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This category is for types of musicians (drummer, pianist, etc.) but manages to also include Beatles. We should maybe rename Category:Musicians -> Category:Types of musicians and create Category:Musical artists for things like Beatles and Rolling Stone (which are very questionable as entries, but ...). Under Category:Musical artists could go Category:Taylor Swift and Category:Justin Bieber (yes these damn categories exist) instead of having them directly under Category:Music. We probably need a Category:Beatles since we have Beatledom, Beatlemania, Beatles-esque, Beatle cut, Beatlehead, and others. Benwing2 (talk) 10:44, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

I generally agree with having separate categories for instances and types of musical artists/musicians. However, naming the type category Types of musicians is maybe not the best solution since it would break consistency with the naming of parallel categories like CAT:Scientists and CAT:Athletes which also contain types of scientists/athletes. Einstein2 (talk) 00:31, 19 February 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2 another suggestion: based on [[Category:Individuals]], maybe try [[Category:Individual musicians]] and [[Category:Individual artists]]? Juwan (talk) 13:39, 9 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Juwan I think Category:Individual musicians etc. or maybe Category:Named musicians will work. We already have Category:Individual buildings. This is the same issue that @-sche, @Ioaxxere and I have been wrestling with for a long time, i.e. the need to have clear naming conventions for individually named entities, types of entities, and related-to-entity categories. I think we will eventually have to bite the bullet and rename all categories to indicate in their name whether they are name, type or related-to categories, but we're still not completely clear on the naming scheme. Benwing2 (talk) 04:19, 10 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I support that, although we should make sure that "individual musicians" is a subcategory of "individual artists". I recall proposing the "X", "types of X", "individual Xs" scheme a while back. Ioaxxere (talk) 14:05, 10 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Ioaxxere @-sche @Juwan What do you think of "Named musicians", "Named artists" etc.? It is shorter by 5 keystrokes than "Individual ...", and pretty much by definition any individual entity that is fit to go in an "Individual ..." category is a named entity (which is a formal term in machine learning) and hence has a name. Also note that we already have Category:Named buildings, Category:Named roads, Category:Named prayers and Category:Named bridges. Benwing2 (talk) 04:04, 11 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
 Support for consistency, either one or the other. Juwan (talk) 14:03, 11 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
 Support, seems pretty clear Ioaxxere (talk) 18:25, 11 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Sure. There are edge cases either way, but there are probably fewer edge cases like TAFKAP with "Named musicians", and it's consistent with the other "Named..." categories as you say, whereas "Individual musicians" would run into more edge cases like e.g. the Beatles who are a group rather than an "individual". - -sche (discuss) 20:40, 11 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Justin Bieber and Category:Taylor Swift

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these categories should be removed from [[Category:Music]] and moved to [[Category:Musicians]]. Juwan (talk) 19:39, 3 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The “Musicians” category is for “types of musicians”. J3133 (talk) 07:59, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
OK, striking; not moved. - -sche (discuss) 00:10, 10 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
moving down as an argument for [[Category:Named musicians]]. Juwan (talk) 14:15, 11 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Brass instruments

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This label should be placed under Module:category tree/topic/Music instead of Module:category tree/topic/Technology.

Besides, Module:category tree/topic/History Line 245 {"Saudi Arabia", "history of Europe"}, should be replaced with {"Saudi Arabia", "history of Asia"},. TongcyDai (talk) 14:37, 2 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

For CAT:Brass instruments, the relevant category is actually CAT:Musical instruments, which is under both CAT:Tools and CAT:Music. I suppose it's debatable whether musical instruments should be considered tools. I fixed Saudi Arabia, even though CAT:History of Saudi Arabia does not exist. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:49, 2 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't think musical instruments are tools. Tools are used to create, shape or manipulate physical objects, which doesn't usually apply to musical instruments. Benwing2 (talk) 04:19, 12 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Moved Category:Brass instruments and removed 'tools' as a parent of CAT:Musical instruments. Benwing2 (talk) 19:43, 17 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

cleaning up Category:Fictional characters, Category:Mythological creatures, Category:Mythological figures and Category:Characters from folklore

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Latest comment: 1 year ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Per the discussion above under #Category:art-nav:Avatar, things are all messed up in the fictional/mythological character space. We have at least the following issues:

  1. Category:Fictional characters mixes up named characters, types of characters and even randomly related terms like El Dorado (a fictional location), futanari (a genre) and babygirlification (a process related to fan fiction).
  2. "character" properly refers to a named character, but Category:Characters from folklore has categories for types of mythological beings under it (vampires, zombies, ghosts, etc.).
  3. "creature" is usually used to refer to non-sentient animals but Category:Mythological creatures contains subcategories for merpeople, vampires, zombies and other sentient humanoid beings.
  4. Category:Mythological figures is non-parallel to Category:Fictional characters in naming.
  5. The distinction between fiction and mythology may be hard to maintain; a symptom of this is that Category:Characters from folklore has Category:Fictional characters as its primary parent but seems more mythological than fictional.

I don't know how to untangle all of these issues but as a start I'd propose:

  1. Use "character" for named characters in stories, "being" for types of characters other than people. Dispense with "figure" and "creature".
  2. Categorize folklore as mythology rather than fiction. Fiction should be limited to cases where the originating author is clear (e.g. Harry Potter, Batman, etc.). Everything else should be considered mythology (or maybe better, "mythology and folklore").

So maybe we should have:

  1. Category:Fictional characters or Category:Named fictional characters, a name category.
  2. Category:Mythological and folkloric characters or Category:Named mythological and folkloric characters, a name category.
  3. Category:Mythological and folkloric beings or Category:Types of mythological and folkloric beings, a type category.
  4. Potentially Category:Fictional beings or Category:Types of fictional beings, but I don't know if there are enough terms to fill this category.

Benwing2 (talk) 04:16, 12 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Benwing2  Support, including point 4, leaning in support for the latter options given for each one. the last category I believe is good to have. Juwan (talk) 12:09, 12 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Re your last four points, support the first three, and prefer "Named mythological..." and "Types of..." because it occurs to me that though I like brevity, people would probably put things like elf into "Mythological and folkloric characters" and things like Zeus into "Mythological and folkloric beings" (he is a being). (Using "Named..." does mean we face edge cases where characters aren't per se named but have descriptors, The Such-and-such.) Also support the last proposal, if there are entries or subcategories to fill it. Wookiee, Dalek, Vulcan, Romulan and Klingon are already in, or belong in, the subcat "Category:en:Celestial inhabitants"...but that's OK, subcategories can also be a reason to have the category...but if we say "Category:Fictional characters" is a category for named characters, does the inclusion of subcats like Category:en:Batman—which defines itself as being for terms related to Batman, rather than named Batman characters—become awkward? (And if we move "related-to" categories like that somewhere else, it's unclear how many subcats would remain in "Cat:Fictional characters").
BTW, a lot of terms currently in Category:en:Fictional characters don't seem to belong, e.g. and your little dog too, archdevil, archpaladin.
Just to check, would "Types of mythological and folkloric beings" include (say) pishtaco, naga, angel, dis, tutelary deity, goddess, god, valkyrie, deva, or are we going to try to distinguish "things which there are still people today who religiously believe in" (like deva, naga, angel, valkyrie, goddess, god) from "things people don't believe in"? My instinct is that the latter approach is too messy and difficult (neopagans religiously believe in all kinds of things). - -sche (discuss) 20:26, 13 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
In response to your points:
  1. I don't see an issue putting e.g. Category:Batman (a related-to category) under Category:Named fictional characters. Batman is a named fictional character, so this seems to the obvious place to put the subcat.
  2. I also think the case of individual entities that only go by a descriptor (were you thinking of e.g. 'the Pied Piper' or even 'the Holy Spirit' or 'God' in Christianity?) is not a real problem; effectively the descriptors function like names because they uniquely identify the individual.
  3. About terms that don't belong, yeah there are a lot of them that need cleaning up.
  4. I don't think it makes sense to try and distinguish "mythological beings part of a current religion" from "mythological beings not part of a current religion" for exactly the reasons you outline; my instinct would be to say valkyries, for example, are part of a former religion, not a current one, but (as you point out) there are neopagan religions currently in existence that believe in valkyries. So we'd group e.g. angels and valkyries. If someone objects that angels are religious beings not mythological beings, we could conceivably rename the category to 'Types of mythological, religious and folkloric beings' but that would be awkwardly long. Benwing2 (talk) 21:14, 13 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Fairy tales -> Category:Named fairy tales or delete, Category:Fairy tale -> Category:Fairy tales

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Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Currently, Category:Fairy tale is a related-to category and Category:Fairy tales is a set category, but this is confusing enough that some terms are misclassified. Furthermore, the vast majority of entries in Category:Fairy tales are actually fairy-tale characters, e.g. Snow White and Goldilocks; when the names of the fairy tales themselves differ from the main character (e.g. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears), the fairy tales are typically not in Wiktionary, which suggests that we might want to deprecate Category:Fairy tales in favor of Category:Fairy tale characters. Benwing2 (talk) 04:22, 13 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

"Named fairy tales" sounds weird to me, and it seems weird to me to have entries for the stories anyway; I would rather fold the "story" definitions at e.g. Little Red Riding Hood into the character definitions ("A young girl, the protagonist of a popular fairy tale in which she..."); then we conveniently don't need to figure out what to call a category for the stories themselves. Moving the characters to Category:Fairy tale characters, and dispensing with Category:Fairy tale in favour of putting the "related" terms in Category:Fairy tales, seems reasonable to me. - -sche (discuss) 19:19, 13 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

merge Category:Amoebozoal diseases, Category:Coccidial diseases, Category:Trypanosomal diseases under Category:Protozoan diseases

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Latest comment: 1 year ago19 comments3 people in discussion

Yes, "protozoan" is polyphyletic but still commonly used, and the above three categories are seriously underused as well as opaque to nonspecialists in microscopic organisms. Benwing2 (talk) 05:24, 13 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

ping @Chuck Entz @DCDuring as our resident taxonomists. Benwing2 (talk) 18:36, 13 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't object, but will research further on this. Category:Fungal diseases is a good sister category. I don't know about Category:Chromist diseases. Should we have a supercategory for Category:Diseases by type of causal organism with members in the form "Category:[agent kingdom]-caused diseases" (which set of names wouldn't depend on selecting a particular kingdom-name-derived adjective where none has wide usage)? (Virus probably should be one of the "kingdoms" for this purpose.) That would at least assure coverage of all diseases caused by organisms. (But what about lichen?) We may want the category system to support both vector types and agent types, so perhaps "agent" needs to incorporated into the category naming. [I had forgotten about hosts, reservoirs, the various kinds of parasites. There are more such complications, some of which we need not address, except to avoid potential future confusion.] DCDuring (talk) 19:15, 13 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
We currently have Category:Vector-borne diseases, with subcats Category:Insect-borne diseases and Category:Tick-borne diseases, and Category:Insect-borne diseases has Category:Mosquito-borne diseases as a subcat. I support a general rethinking of these categories by someone like you who has the domain knowledge. I tried to correct some of the weirdnesses (e.g. Category:Leprosy had Category:Disease as its parent; I changed the parent to Category:Bacterial diseases) but there are lots of weirdnesses still. Benwing2 (talk) 20:54, 13 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
It would be great if I had much domain knowledge beyond what I've picked up at Wiktionary and from a little bit of reading. I'd be happy to defer to anyone with interest in this.
WP doesn't have a great category structure for diseases, but they are a good source of potentially interesting categories. One potentially useful source of info from WP would be Category:Lists of diseases, which could be mined for redlinks. DCDuring (talk) 21:12, 13 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Category:Plant diseases is an ambiguous name, potentially including diseases both caused by plants and suffered by plants. We probably need categories trees for agent, vector, and patient! DCDuring (talk) 19:42, 13 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
This is true. Maybe we should rename Category:Plant diseases to Category:Diseases of plants, which is unambiguous. (Then we'd have to have Category:Plant-caused diseases if we want such a category, but I don't know of enough such diseases to fill the category.) Benwing2 (talk) 21:18, 13 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Some algae are called plants; others are bacteria; and some taxonomists put some algae in kingdom Chromista. Some algae cause disease, but mostly by producing toxins. We can create the category when we have at least a couple of members. In the meantime they can go in a junk category, if we find any. How we handle afflictions caused by toxins produced by organisms, by their decay, or by decay of their waste is another question to be deferred, I think. DCDuring (talk) 22:15, 13 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I created the causal-organism-based categories because categories like Category:en:Bacteria and Category:en:Diseases were too big to be useful for terms like scarlet fever, which is a disease caused by a bacterium. That and the fact that anthrax, for example, isn't itself a type of bacteria even though a single species of bacteria is the known cause. I followed the framework of the organism categories I was familiar with, which were based on taxonomy. Of course, there are a great many more types of organisms than there are of pathogenic organisms, so that was probably unnecessary beyond a few main categories.
As for "protozoal diseases": "Protozoa" has no meaning in modern taxonomy, since there are protozoans that are more closely related to us than they are to some of the other protozoans. Basically, protozoa are any single-celled organisms that move around and can't be interpreted as belonging to some group like plants or fungi. When you consider that ginkgo pollen and fern spores develop into things that swim around under their own power, the old ideas about what makes plants and animals different from each other don't hold water. As it is, many algae aren't plants in any modern sense, and there are lots of organisms that are not in any group that laypeople would recognize. Internal structures such as chloroplasts and mitochondria are now believed to have originated as independant organisms that entered the cells of other organisms and became symbiotic, so some photosynthetic organisms are related to each other in different ways than their chloroplasts are. There are groups such as plants and animals that are taxonomically valid, but not quite the same as what the layperson would think they are.
That's not to say we can't have a category for protozoal diseases- but it won't be taxonomically based. It would probably be better than having taxonomically-valid categories with only one or a very small number of members even in English. Pathogenic organisms tend to be outliers that have survived in spite of missing the adaptations that have made the main groups so successful, so it may be better to not stick to a strictly taxonomic framework. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:37, 13 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Chuck Entz Yes, I mentioned the fact that "protozoan" is polyphyletic above and I know it doesn't have a strict definition, but I believe it's better to have groupings that are understandable to a lay person than categories like Category:Coccidial diseases that require specialist knowledge to interpret. I still don't have a good sense of what coccidial means even after looking it up; our definition just says it means "related to Coccidia parasites", and if you look up Coccidia in Wikipedia, you get this:
Coccidia (Coccidiasina) are a subclass of microscopic, spore-forming, single-celled obligate intracellular parasites belonging to the apicomplexan class Conoidasida.
which really isn't helpful. At least the term "protozoan" is familiar to most laypeople. Benwing2 (talk) 00:03, 14 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't disagree with you. I just wanted to give some background, and to demonstrate how wildly incomprehensible the taxonomic reality is. I can't think of any taxonomically valid way to merge the categories, but they're pretty pathetic as they stand. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:14, 14 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Taxonomy is tough to connect to everyday knowledge, but we need categories. The problem is not limited to organism taxonomy, but applies to the worlds of, for example, disease, artifacts, and scientific phenomena. In our taxonomy hierarchy are lots of entities that have no good, brief name and only make sense to some taxonomists and biologists. Category:Infectious diseases or even Category:Infectious diseases of humans would probably be too big to be useful even for the disease names we have entries for now, let alone those we should have. I am pretty sure that we have enough to populate four categories by causal-agent taxonomy (bacterial, viral, fungal, and one for protists). We probably need one for unknown class of agent and might need one for agents of multiple classes. Within these broad categories we may need epistemic categories as much as narrower sets of taxonomy categories.
We would probably benefit from knowledge of how medical/biological libraries, especially of articles, are organized by subject. DCDuring (talk) 15:44, 14 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The top of the MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) disease category set is 'Viral diseases', 'Neoplasms' (cancers etc.), 'Cardiovascular diseases', and 'Infections and infestations'. DCDuring (talk) 15:57, 14 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Your comment

I had forgotten about protists, another taxonomically meaningless term. It basically refers to everything that doesn't fit into the familiar categories such as plants, animals and fungi. It's hard to explain the difference between water molds (a common cause of disease in the roots of overwatered plants) and fungi without going into phylogenetics, especially for a non-expert like me. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:00, 14 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't think it would matter if it were meaningless in some sense. If it means a kingdom of eukaryotes 'not elsewhere classified', we can use it.
Looking further at items in a 2025 MeSH download, I see that they use bacterial and viral taxa of agents to categorize infections, eg, Adenoviridae, Adenovirus, Mastadenovirus (virus); Acinetobacter, Anaplasmataceae, Actinomycetales (bacteria); Strongylida (animal); Aspergillus (fungus); Babesia (protist).
I haven't identified how they deal with epistemic issues. DCDuring (talk) 16:31, 14 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Medicine in general distinguishes among signs, symptoms, and syndromes, which reflect a greater or lesser degree of association with a particular disease and can be viewed as epistemic. DCDuring (talk) 19:44, 23 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I note that MeSH primarily uses subject headings of relevance to their users and catalogers. Some of their categories are taxonomic. As one would expect, their disease categories focus on diseases of humans. Many of the top-level categories of diseases focus on the site of the disease, but also on causal organisms, means of transmission, etc. DCDuring (talk) 17:48, 14 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
We can input a definition with label into MeSH on Demand and get their subject headings which we could relate to our current and desired category structure. (We could use more of the text from an entry, like quotations, synonyms, etc., but likely without benefit.)
Applying MeSH on Demand to "mange (veterinary medicine) A skin disease of nonhuman mammals caused by parasitic mites (Sarcoptes spp., Demodecidae spp.).", from our entry for mange, yielded "mammals", "mites", and "Sarcoptes" as subject headings, which suggests that it is not particularly well-suited for non-human diseases and vernacular terms. MeSH has "Skin Diseases, Infectious", "Skin and Connective Tissue Diseases", and "Animal Diseases" as headings which might be applicable.
I conclude that, to take advantage of the vast amount of effort already devoted to medical subject headings for human diseases, we should first segregate human diseases from all others. We have numerous (>20) entries already for diseases of reptiles, birds, plants, mammals, fish, some having their own category. I suppose that diseases of humans should in both Category:Diseases and Category:Diseases of humans, reflecting the fact that users don't normally think of disease as something affecting non-human organisms. We can treat diseases of all other types of organisms solely as members of subcategories like Category:Diseases of reptiles, Diseases of non-human primates, Diseases of non-primate mammals. Disease entries often don't have such useful things as inclusion of the word "human" (or other type of organism) and a link to WP. I'd recommend using MeSH on Demand applied to the text of definitions to generate other possible categories with the result placed on the entries' talk pages if not immediately used or not corresponding to our categories. DCDuring (talk) 17:44, 23 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I will organize my thoughts at User:DCDuring/Disease-related categories. Comments welcome. DCDuring (talk) 20:01, 23 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Proposal: Category:Indigenous peoples

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Latest comment: 1 year ago8 comments5 people in discussion

Proposing a new topical category to serve as a related-to category for terms related to Indigenous peoples, such as common umbrella terms for groupings of Indigenous peoples in a certain country or region (e.g. Adivasi, Khoekhoe, Lumad, Negrito, Orang Asli, pygmy, San, etc.). It would also serve as the main parent category for more specific related-to categories such as the likes of Category:Native Americans, as well as uncreated ones such as Category:Indigenous Australians or more generic "Indigenous peoples of X" categories that would usually contain names (both specific or broad) of indigenous groups within a specific country or region. TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 03:11, 14 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

@TagaSanPedroAko A category containing terms like Adivasi and Negrito should be a name category rather than a related-to category, something like Category:Named indigenous groupings. This would be distinct from a grouping category like Category:Indigenous peoples; although I'm not sure we need the latter, as we already have Category:Ethnonyms and since "Indigenous peoples" isn't really a well-defined concept, especially outside of areas like the US and Australia that were recently colonized by Europeans. Benwing2 (talk) 20:37, 14 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree with Ben that "indigenous peoples" is a very vague and often politicised topic. Are Finnic people "indigenous"? They only got there two thousand years ago, and replaced earlier populations, but still managed to do that before later Slavic expansions. When compared to Russians, they are probably indigenous, but when compared to Sámi people, they are rather colonisers. And this will be the case pretty much everywhere, unless we simply don't know the history of the region far enough back in time to be able to say there were people there before the current populations. Thadh (talk) 20:53, 14 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think a good case could be made for speakers of language isolates surrounded by dominant languages, such as the Basques, Ainus, and perhaps the Burushos. On the other end of the scale, you have the Palestinians and the Israelis, both of whom consider themselves indigenous to the same place with the other as the invader- and which is which depends on how you frame it. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:59, 14 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
It feels like it's not our place to determine who's indigenous given how politicized it is, as @Thadh notes. Terms like Adivasi, Negrito, Orang Asli and Native American are maybe different because their definitions cover heterogeneous groups and specifically convey the sense of "people who are not the dominant ethnic group(s) [and usually predate the dominant ethnic group(s)]", but beyond that I think we should just have ethnonyms/ethnic groups and leave it at that. Benwing2 (talk) 23:50, 14 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Indeed, on a balance the points above make me think a general, world-wide "Indigenous peoples" or "Named indigenous groupings" category is probably unneeded (or undesirable), compared to just grouping such terms with other people-group terms. The phenomenon of a term denoting multiple people-groups is not limited to the kind of people-groups discussed above: not just "San" but also e.g. "British people" and "white people" also group together peoples who can alternatively be distinguished (you can have one book about "Native Americans and white people in the United States" or another about e.g. "Abenakis and Chickasaws, and Germans and Scots, in Colonial America"). Sometimes the indigenous peoples of a particular region have an established term with established scope, like "Native American" or "Aboriginal Australian"; it seems fine to keep those categories when there are enough entries to fill them. (Currently a few Aboriginal-related terms like no matter how much milk you put in coffee, it's still coffee are in the "Native American" category, but that seems simple enough to clean up.) - -sche (discuss) 18:58, 15 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Ultimately, my proposal has to do with the current parent categories for Category:Native Americans. It looks wrong with a people-related topical category like that having country-related topical categories as parents in the category tree, so my idea for this as a solution to that.
As for an Indigenous Australians topical category, would second creating that, as a container for both common terms for Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) but terms with strong topical connections to Indigenous Australians such as country (definition "Aboriginal traditional territory", see Welcome to Country for background) and Stolen Generations to name a few. TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 17:01, 17 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Aha. Maybe we could solve that by making Category:People (or its subcategory "Ethnonyms") the first parent category for "Native Americans" (perhaps leaving the countries as secondary parents)? - -sche (discuss) 16:59, 20 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Occult, Category:Supernatural, Category:Paranormal and Category:Parapsychology

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Latest comment: 1 year ago8 comments2 people in discussion

What are the differences among these four categories and do we need all four? Currently Category:Paranormal (renamed from Category:Forteana) is a grouping category with no entries, only subcats; Category:Supernatural is primarily a grouping category, with few entries; Category:Occult is a grouping category with a lot of entries; and Category:Parapsychology contains only entries, no subcats. Category:Paranormal has Category:Pseudoscience as its primary parent; Category:Supernatural has Category:Folklore as its primary parent; and Category:Occult has Category:Supernatural as its primary parent. Many of the more specific categories like Category:Ghosts are under multiple parents, and for those under a single parent, the choice often seems arbitrary (e.g. why is Category:Magic under Category:Supernatural not Category:Occult?). Can someone who knows this area better than I do help sort it out? Benwing2 (talk) 05:03, 15 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

I suppose whoever made the "Parapsychology" category saw we had nearly a hundred entries that pertain to supposed paranormal human abilities, and wanted to categorize those together...or it's worked out by chance that that's what the category contains. I don't know if there's a better name for it than "Parapsychology" (which for some reason seems to also include the study of apparitions? as well as of supposed human abilities); maybe just "paranormal abilities" would more clearly cover its current actual scope? (But it also contains some entries that relate to supposed human abilities without directly being abilities, e.g. astral plane.) By contrast the "Occult" category seems to contain a mishmash; for many of the entries in it, e.g. mage and ghost, more obvious categories exist. For a few entries (e.g. right-hand path) where else to put them is less obvious, but they could probably be moved to "Category:Mysticism" and we could empty and delete "Occult"(?). (Or else merge those two in the other direction?) BTW, the placement of "Category:Otherkin" under "Mysticism" seems weird; would it be better as a subcat of "subcultures", which is where e.g. furries is, or can anyone think of a better place for it?
At the moment it seems as if no distinction is maintained between "Category:Supernatural" and "Category:Paranormal", and which one of them an entry or category ends up in seems to lack discernible rhyme or reason; it seems like the two could be merged. It occurred to me recently that we could possibly repurpose "supernatural" as a shorter word for "mythological or folkloric" if necessary (especially if, down the line, we ever reached a point where we were otherwise having to consider "mythological or folkloric or religious"). - -sche (discuss) 07:44, 15 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I am inclined to agree with repurposing "Supernatural" to mean "Mythological or folkloric" and emptying "Occult". Underneath Occult we have CAT:Ghosts, which has eight parents (!) and should be moved under CAT:Mythological creatures like Vampires, Zombies, etc.; CAT:Paganism, which should be moved under CAT:Religion; CAT:Divination, which should be moved under CAT:Paranormal or something; and CAT:Spiritualism, which maybe should also be moved under CAT:Paranormal (although in truth I don't really know what "spiritualism" refers to, other than maybe mediums, so maybe this category can be merged elsewhere). The more I look the more I find supernatural/paranormal categories: CAT:Mysticism, CAT:Afterlife (which seems wrongly placed under CAT:Philosophy), etc. Benwing2 (talk) 08:12, 15 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
"Afterlife" seems like it should have "Religion" as its parent, rather than "Philosophy", which is weird, as you say. And I agree "Paganism" also belongs in "Religion", not "Occult". The contents of the "spiritualism" category seem like a mishmash of things that belong in "mysticism" and things that belong in "divination", and things like genius hominis that belong wherever we're putting deva et al (probably "mythological and folkloric beings" or "supernatural beings"); I think we could probably empty "spiritualism" (moving its entries to other, more applicable categories) and delete it. (I think, as a first step to whatever else we decide to do, I will move entries in the "spiritualism" category which have more obvious homes to those more obvious homes/categories.)
"CAT:en:Divination" seems to contain almost exclusively terms for old (Roman, etc) forms of divination, which don't feel "paranormal" to me per se (something about "paranormal" connotes "modern" to me—a Greek-derived word for some ancient Greek type of ghost or diviner feels like a "mythology" or "folklore" thing; even an octogenarian today who grew up believing in haints or water-witching feels like a "folklore" thing; "paranormal" feels like a younger person who goes around old houses with electronic devices to measure fluctuations in EMF and the like); if there are modern, paranormal-y forms of divination in the category, I didn't spot them (but it wouldn't surprise me if they exist), so after some thought my suggestion is to make "divination" a child of "pseudoscience", the way "alchemy" is. If any modern religions practice methods of divination (that we have entries for, and put in that category), then "divination" could have "religion" as a second parent. And I'm tempted to maybe also give it some "folklore"-related category as a parent, on account of things like dowsing feeling folklore-related, but I'm not sure.
"Mysticism" is interesting; on closer inspection I see why it has "Religion" as a parent, since it contains "Gnosticism" and "Sufism" and such things, but (especially if we merge "Occult" into it) it would make sense to put "Paranormal" as another parent (or "Supernatural", but I am assuming we merge "Paranormal" and "Supernatural").
A lot of categories are simultaneously in both a parent category and its child categories, e.g. we have "Pseudoscience" containing "Alchemy", "Parapsychology", and "Paranormal", but then the last of those, "Paranormal", itself contains "Alchemy" and "Parapsychology" again, making them simultaneously its children and siblings. I would tentatively be inclined to remove "Alchemy" from "Paranormal" and just leave it under "Pseudoscience". - -sche (discuss) 00:03, 16 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@-sche Thanks for all your comments. I agree with basically everything you say, and please feel free to start moving things out of mishmash categories into better-suited places. I also think that we should not have something in both a parent and its child; and generally we should flatten the hierarchy a bit. I'm gonna go ahead and make some changes to category parents; if they don't end up making sense, we can always move them again. Benwing2 (talk) 04:03, 16 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
For most languages that have/had a "Spiritualism" category, the main (often only) entries in it are/were the words medium and spiritualism. I initially moved medium words to "Parapsychology", as I think it is technically within parapsychology's scope, but we could move them directly into "Paranormal" if people prefer. I have been moving the word spiritualism (in various languages) to "Paranormal", and after emptying a bunch of ~2-entry categories, Category:Spiritualism has gone from 11 subcats to 3.
As I try to finish it off, does anyone have a preference for whether to keep the "spiritualism" label but change it to categorize into "Paranormal" (or somewhere else), or remove the label? The number of entries which actually seem to be spiritualist jargon appears small (metethereal? perispirit? maybe energumen) though nonzero; but the polysemy of the word means many entries seem to be using the label due to (1) mistaking it as a topic category for the topic "soul" / a category for housing any word that means 'soul/spirit' (tin, Aloha Spirit), (2) using it on the word 'spiritism' in various languages, or (3) mistaking it for meaning spiritualness (spirituality).
BTW I am reminded there is at least one modern form of (quasi-)divination, Ouija boards. (Does anyone else have opinions about whether to put the "Divination" category under "Paranormal" [which is under "Pseudoscience"], or just put it directly under "Pseudoscience" alongside e.g. "Alchemy"? I am on the fence.) - -sche (discuss) 04:01, 17 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
If there's a strong tendency to confuse what 'spiritualism' means (and I don't really know what it means myself), I'd be inclined to remove the label entirely. If there are only a few true "spiritualism" words, we can place them in a ==See also== section or whatever directly in the lemma spiritualism. As for where to place 'Divination', since (as you've pointed out) it predominantly refers to ancient forms of divination, I'm leaning towards putting it directly under Pseudoscience. Benwing2 (talk) 04:43, 17 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
OK, I'm almost done moving entries from "Spiritualism". There are a modest number of terms which could (and until now, did) bear a 'spiritualism' label — besides spiritualism and medium and the three words named above, there are psychography and psychophony and their related terms, which could, I suppose, (re)fill a small category — but about as many entries seemed to misunderstand the label, so I'm unsure it's maintainable as something separate from "paranormal". I will leave the label in Module:labels whilst the other categories above are discussed/dealt with, to give more time to see if anyone comments or introduces it to more words. - -sche (discuss) 06:24, 18 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

changes to musical instrument categories

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Latest comment: 1 year ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Category:en:Musical instruments has 900 members and is generally a mess. I propose the following:

  1. Rename or eliminate Category:Singing voice synthesis: Under Category:Musical instruments, you have Category:Percussion instruments, Category:String instruments, Category:Wind instruments, and Category:Singing voice synthesis. In my head I hear "one of these things is not like the others" playing over and over. I don't really know what Category:Singing voice synthesis is but it seems way too specific and should be either coalesced into a broader category or eliminated. Possibly instead we need a category for synthesizers, or two such categories, a related-to and a type category; see the item below about organs.
  2. Add Category:Keyboard instruments for pianos, harpsichords, accordions, organs and the like.
  3. Rename Category:Organ instruments to Category:Musical organs (what's an "organ instrument"? seems strange ...) and put under Category:Keyboard instruments instead of Category:Wind instruments. (Technically yes an organ is a wind instrument but that's not how I at least think of it.)
  4. Split Category:Musical organs into a related-to category and a type category, since there are both several terms for types of organs (already categorized into Category:Organ instruments) and terms for things related to organs (various types of stops and pipes and other parts of organs and special organ effects), which are mostly now placed directly in Category:Music. Maybe Category:Musical organs is the related-to category and Category:Types of musical organs is the type category? Or should we adopt the terminology I've proposed previously of using something like Category:Musical organs (related terms) and Category:Musical organs (types) so that autocomplete works properly with these categories? To make it easier to add terms to these categories, I propose changing {{topics}}/{{C}} to have abbreviations for categories of this format, e.g. {{C|en|r:Musical organs}} or {{C|en|rel:Musical organs}} for the related-to category, {{C|en|t:Musical organs}} or {{C|en|typ:Musical organs}} for the type category.
  5. Add Category:Drums under Category:Percussion instruments.
  6. Add Category:Plucked string instruments under Category:String instruments, for guitars, lutes, ukeleles, mandolins and the like. The technical term for this family of instruments seems to be "lutes" but "lute" is also the name of a specific subcategory of plucked string instruments, and the ambiguity won't do.
  7. Add Category:Bowed string instruments under Category:String instruments, for violins, cellos, viola da gambas etc.
  8. Rename Category:Lutherie to Category:String instrument making or Category:String instrument construction or Category:String instrument manufacture or similar. "Lutherie" may be the correct technical term but (a) it's hella obscure and (b) it's likely to be misinterpreted as referring specifically to lutes.
  9. User:Juwan created Category:Gongs but this may be too specific; there are only 2 categories currently with a total of 5 entries across them. We might want instead a more general category for directly-struck non-drum percussion instruments (not sure the correct term for this), including gongs, cymbals, triangles, bells, claves, castanets and the like. We might also want a category for shaken or rubbed percussion instruments, e.g. rattles, gourds, washboards, ratchets, tambourines, etc. but this may be too specific. Update: Under Percussion instruments, Wikipedia distinguishes between membranophones (approximately = drums) and idiophones (= most everything else that is normally considered a percussion instrument); we might consider doing the same.

Benwing2 (talk) 20:46, 17 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

My apologies, it looks like it was @Yivan000 not @Juwan who created Category:Gongs. Benwing2 (talk) 21:32, 17 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2 I created that category because there are a lot of terms related to gongs, especially in Cordilleran languages (wherein the gong is the primary musical instrument used for various purposes). {{R:kne:Vanoverbergh 1982 games}} alone lists 35 Kankanaey terms (I still am not finished adding them to Wiktionary). — 🍕 Yivan000 viewtalk 02:52, 18 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
OK, but you added the category 6 months ago and we have only 2 terms for gongs in Kankanaey. At this rate we will get to a reasonable number of terms to fill the category in ~ 5 years, and until then we may not need the category. Benwing2 (talk) 03:14, 18 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

delete Category:Philmont Scout Ranch

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Latest comment: 1 year ago7 comments7 people in discussion

Created by @SnowyCinema. Hands down this may be the most random category we have. It should be deleted and the small number of entries in the single extant category moved elsewhere or just decategorized. Benwing2 (talk) 21:38, 17 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Delete. It's far too specific. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:12, 18 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
When I looked into it, it seems like there isn't actually much policy around the issue of which categories are allowed vs. not. (I could be wrong, though.) Wiktionary:Categorization says "grouping words by topic" is allowed but that's...pretty much it. WT:TOPICCAT does expand on this by saying "Where useful, words are categorized by topic"—so I guess this debate is going to have to be about whether or not this category is useful. This begs the questions of "How do we define useful?" "Useful to whom?" "For what purpose?" So, I'll address that.
The only thing I have in the realm of hard evidence of "usefulness" is the user/editor page view count, which would actually indicate lack of "usefulness" compared to other sampled categories. Category:en:Philmont Scout Ranch had 16 page views this month, whereas Category:en:South Park had 47. But to compare with a category for a more mainstream topic, Category:en:Botany had well over a thousand views, so I guess both of the previous examples fail that test similarly.
No other editors here likely care about Philmont, so if "useful" means "do our editors care?", then the answer would be a clear "no".
But that's all I've got. So I digress, since I'm not investing anything in my work here anymore. I predict that this is going to be deleted, so when that happens, I guess you should just move everything to Category:Scouting since that's the parent topic for all of these. SnowyCinema (talk) 08:01, 19 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
The terms in the category should all be RFV'ed and kept only if used by author who are independent of the Philmont Scout Ranch. If these terms haven't spread beyond the ranch's sphere of influence, the terms should be deleted and then the category deleted by default. Wiktionary isn't hear to document the parochial jargon of a single organization. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:55, 19 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Hmm... if the terms are used by 3+ authors (over more than 1 year, etc), I'm not sure I agree that the authors being Philmonters would disqualify them. I'm trying to think of similar cases and how they've been handled. We do have (when attested by 3+ authors 1+ year etc) various universities' and British public schools' slang, and this ranch has about as many "students" as many universities; we have various (sometimes small) fandoms' slangs (indeed we even have whole languages and their pandanus-foraging-party jargons with fewer speakers than this ranch). The category has more entries than I would've expected one ranch to be able to attest, but still only 8, and it only has that many by counting things like the name of the ranch as one of the entries, and other entries say they've spread beyond Philmont (like minibear) so their connection is only etymological, so (unless there are a bunch more terms that belong in it) I'm fine with deleting the category as being overly specific/narrow/small. But if the terms are used by 3+ authors (1+ year etc), say Buzz Aldrin, Donald Rumsfeld and Wally Berg, then AFAIK/IMO they'd pass RFV regardless of those authors all being Philmonters. (Edited to add: But perhaps I have misunderstood and you and I aren't actually disagreeing, if you are talking about deleting the terms if they're only used in Philmount-Ranch-published materials about the ranch where the author is "Philmont Staff", or that kind of thing, whereas I am talking about keeping the terms if—even in discussing their time at the ranch—3+ former Philmonters like Aldrin et al. use the terms in their memoirs or whatnot.) - -sche (discuss) 14:39, 19 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Do we have categories with names that fail WT:BRAND? Should we? DCDuring (talk) 15:45, 19 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

splitting Category:Musical genres

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Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

While we're at it, we should create categories for common musical genres. Category:en:Musical genres has 796 entries and there are lots more in Category:en:Music. We currently have categories for blues, jazz and opera, and that appears to be it. (Crazily, we have a category Category:Rock paper scissors but no Category:Rock music!) I'd suggest categories at least the following:

  1. rock music, subdivided into at least
    1. heavy metal (since there seem to be so many metal varieties)
  2. country music
  3. folk music
  4. pop music
  5. electronic music, subdivided into at least
    1. electronic dance music (EDM)
    2. electronica (= ambient, trip-hop, noise music, and other variants not specifically intended for dancing)
  6. R+B/soul
  7. hip-hop
  8. Classical music
  9. non-Western music, subdivided into ?; someone will have to help me here, but maybe a first-level division is:
    1. Latin music (salsa, merengue, bachata, etc. etc.)
    2. Caribbean music, although this overlaps somewhat with Latin music
    3. South Indian music
    4. Arabic music (or Middle Eastern music?)
    5. East Asian music, which should probably be split into popular styles (K-pop, J-pop, etc.) and traditional styles
    6. African music (does this even make sense? it may need to be subdivided at the top)
    7. etc.

This is a very rough outline but just lumping all the genres together isn't really helpful either. Benwing2 (talk) 03:41, 18 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Perfumes, Category:Perfumery

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Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Can we make Category:Perfumes a child of Category:Perfumery, please? Voltaigne (talk) 14:56, 18 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Voltaigne Agreed. I also think Category:Perfumery is better placed under Category:Toiletries than under Category:Smell or Category:Fashion (maybe those can be secondary parents). Note that once we resolve how to correctly name related-to and type categories, Category:Perfumery and Category:Perfumes should have similar names, just distinguished by being a related-to vs. a type category. Benwing2 (talk) 17:12, 18 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
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Latest comment: 1 year ago11 comments2 people in discussion

@-sche @Ioaxxere Sorry to ping you both again but I'm going through Category:en:Music offline and separating out the items into more specific categories and I'm finding the need to make a systematic distinction between types of specific categories of musical instruments (e.g. types of woodwind instruments, brass instruments, keyboard instruments, etc.) and terms related to specific categories of musical instruments (e.g. terms related to woodwind/brass/keyboard/etc. instruments). I am handling that in the Wikicode by having labels string instrument, brass instrument, bowed string instrument, keyboard instrument, etc. for the type-of categories (many of these labels already exist) and corresponding string instrument-related, brass instrument-related, bowed string instrument-related, keyboard instrument-related etc. for the related-to categories. (All these labels just display as music but categorize in different ways.)

Before adding any such categories (which, in the absence of a clear naming scheme would necessitate some ad-hoc naming system), I'd like to adopt the scheme I proposed above, namely:

  1. Use parenthesized identifiers after the category topic to distinguish the classes of categories: Category:Woodwind instruments (types) vs. Category:Woodwind instruments (related terms) vs. Category:Woodwind instruments (named) (although this latter category makes little sense for woodwind instruments), where Category:Woodwind instruments also exists but is just a grouping category (i.e. the parent of each of these categories). The advantage of this scheme is that someone searching for a topic using autocomplete will find the appropriate categories, which won't be the case if the categories are named Category:Types of woodwind instruments, Category:Named woodwind instruments, etc.
  2. The template {{topics}} (alias {{C}}, {{c}}, etc.) would have special shorthand syntax to put a term into the categories with parenthesize identifiers, like this: {{C|en|t:Woodwind instruments}} or {{C|en|typ:Woodwind instruments}} for Category:Woodwind instruments (types); {{C|en|r:Woodwind instruments}} or {{C|en|rel:Woodwind instruments}} for Category:Woodwind instruments (related terms); and {{C|en|n:Woodwind instruments}} or {{C|en|nam:Woodwind instruments}} for Category:Woodwind instruments (named). This requires only two extra characters to type when manually categorizing, and this would be obviated in any case in many circumstances by using the appropriate labels.
  3. This scheme would be adopted very gradually. The categories with parenthesized ID's would only come into existence either when new categories are added to the category tree, or when an existing category is split by class (so adding Category:Woodwind instruments (related terms) would entail renaming Category:Woodwind instruments to Category:Woodwind instruments (types)). Eventually we can consider renaming existing categories, but only if/when there's broad agreement on doing so, probably first starting out with cases that are already effectively split by class, but with idiosyncratic names (e.g. Category:Fairy tale vs. Category:Fairy tales, Category:Perfumery vs. Category:Perfumes, Category:Fingers vs. Category:Terms for fingers, etc.). We might decide, for example, that certain types of topics will never be renamed. For example, Category:Tucson and all other categories for known locations can only reasonably be a related-to category; "types of Tucson" makes no sense at all, and although "names of Tucson" is possible (for nicknames), it seems unlikely there are enough nicknames of Tucson to necessitate such a category (same goes for pretty much every known location).
  4. Since the scheme is getting adopted gradually, if for some reason we decide to change the scheme, it won't be the end of the world to rename all the categories using it.

Thoughts? Benwing2 (talk) 02:28, 19 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

I like the idea that every type of category will be named distinctively (I recall proposals in the past that involved distinguishing only two of them and leaving the third with the unqualified name, which I was not in favour of). I like the idea of having the unqualified name be a parent category containing the three (sub)types; we could periodically generate cleanup lists of such 'unqualified' categories that had entries in them, to move into subcategories. I like the idea of putting the 'type qualifier' at the end of the category name, so the topic itself can be typed in when searching for it with the search function or hotcat, etc (that's an improvement over my idea of using prefixes, "Category:topic:X", "Category:set:X", etc).
I wonder if it's confusing to use "related terms" as a qualifier here, with this meaning: we already perennially face edits from people incorrectly adding or removing ====Related terms==== sectons to entries in the belief that it means 'semantically related' there when in fact it means 'etymologically related' there; if we turn around and use "related terms" in our category names in the opposite sense, it seems like other (newcoming) users may similarly-perennially assume it means the same thing as ====Related terms==== and add semantically unrelated but etymologically related terms. I'm not necessarily opposed, but I wonder if we could find better wording. Maybe "(topic)"? - -sche (discuss) 21:22, 19 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I do see your point. The use of "topic" in this sense overloads the word to have two meanings (either the semantic topic itself, or words semantically related to the topic), but maybe that isn't the end of the world. Does (topical) work any better than (topic) to you, or is it equivalent? Benwing2 (talk) 21:28, 19 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
BTW splitting a big category like Category:en:Music is not easy. After several days of chugging through the terms offline, I've managed to recategorize about 1200 out of 3800 or so terms, i.e. only about a third. Benwing2 (talk) 21:35, 19 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
@-sche Sorry to ping you; I'd like to resolve this fairly soon as I have a bunch of music-related categories I'd like to create so I can push the offline work I've done so far on splitting Category:en:Music. Do you have any thoughts on my suggestion and what the best terminology for semantically-related terms is? Keep in mind if we decide to change the terminology later, it won't be a such a big deal as I'll be proceeding very gradually. Benwing2 (talk) 01:00, 22 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't object to "topical" if you prefer it. I wonder whether or not its meaning will be clear to the average user; I would love if other people would weigh in on what terminology they find more vs less clear, but it's hard to make people weigh in on pre-change discussions. Perhaps the surest way to get feedback is to start using one of the options and see if there are complaints... 😅 - -sche (discuss) 02:19, 22 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for your quick response!
Pinging @Ioaxxere @Juwan for potential responses. We're talking about distinguishing the different subtypes of a topic category (types-of-X, terms-related-to-X, named-X). The question is, in a "terms related to X" category, how should we indicate that the category should contain semantically related terms (not etymologically related terms)? I originally suggested (related terms) but @-sche pointed out that this might be confusing given that we have a ===Related terms=== header for etymologically-related terms rather than semantically-related ones, and suggested (topic). My concern about this is that this might be confusing since "topic" also refers to the overall topic, and so I suggested (topical) (whose first definition is Relating to a particular topic or subject). Any thoughts here? If we had e.g. Category:en:Guitars (types) and Category:en:Guitars (topical), would it be clear that the latter should contain terms semantically related to guitars? Now that I think of it, would Category:en:Guitars (topical terms) be any clearer? I've proposed shorthand syntax for use with {{C}}/{{topics}} to enter terms into categories with the subtype tacked onto the end, so the length of the subtype indication shouldn't be a concern as users wouldn't have to type it out in most circumstances. Benwing2 (talk) 02:36, 22 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I was about to say, well, given the lack of feedback, go with whatever and see what problems and complaints it unearths / provokes... but it occurs to me that "topical" will run into issues when it comes to CAT:Medicine and its subcategories, since "medicine (topical)", "surgery (topical)" et al mean something else (medicine/surgery for a specific, exterior area of the body). What is the issue with "topic", again? If someone interprets it as meaning "this category is for the semantic topic of medicine", wouldn't that still lead them to understand the scope of the category, or what entries would they erroneously put in it? The only thing I am calling to mind at the moment, which seems like it would be a problem with any wording, even e.g. "(semantically related to)", is that some people think a term like "knee" belongs in the categories for medicine, anatomy, physiology, etc and merits "anatomy" et labels, because all those fields deal with the knee so the knee is related to them, whereas other people would find some of those categorizations to be excessive. - -sche (discuss) 15:43, 23 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think since e.g. Guitars is the topic, with a category called Category:Guitars (topic) it would not be obvious that this means "terms semantically related to guitars". I think people would get confused and would want to put the terms in Category:Guitars instead. My latest thought is actually just to use Category:Guitars (semantically related) (or Category:Guitars (semantic relations) or something), or alternatively Category:Guitars (topical terms) or Category:Guitars (topically related). I think any of these would avoid the problem with Category:Medicine (topical), and in any case this is an edge case that IMO should not be driving the choice of terminology. When using {{C}}, my thought is that, for any ramified topic (i.e. any topic that has type/name/semantically-related subclasses), {{C|en|Guitars}} will automatically categorize into Category:en:Guitars (semantically related) (or whatever name we choose), since Category:en:Guitars itself shouldn't contain any terms. Meanwhile, {{C|en|typ:Guitars}} or maybe also {{C|en|t:Guitars}} would categorize into Category:en:Guitars (types), and {{C|en|nam:Guitars}} or {{C|en|n:Guitars}} would categorize into Category:en:Guitars (named). BTW the advantage of using "semantically related" (or even just "related") is that it starts with a different letter from "types" and "named", whereas "topic" starts with the same letter as "types", so any variant of that would not allow single-letter abbreviations in {{C}} categories. Benwing2 (talk) 23:47, 23 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Ah, I see; that makes sense, re "Guitars (topic)". "Semantically related" works. (It is more sentence-fragment-y, grammatically, than most category names—we have "English misspellings" rather than "English (incorrectly spelled)"—but let's try it and if people complain and come up with better names, a bot can always move things around.) BTW, I just created demo-itis and initially put it in CAT:en:Music, but then thought: you've just spent a lot of time thinking about what categories to put music-related terms in, I will simply defer to you on where to put it. - -sche (discuss) 07:39, 25 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. I'm not sure where to put that particular term in; maybe a category for music recording specifically, but I don't (yet) have such a category, so it's fine in Category:en:Music. Benwing2 (talk) 07:56, 25 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

eliminate or rethink categories like Category:Five, Category:Six, etc.

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Latest comment: 1 year ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I don't really know the purpose of these categories. Category:en:Five has a hodgepodge of terms whose only connection is that they have the word "five" or "fifth" or the morpheme "quin-" in them. E.g. what's the purpose of a category that groups such disparate terms as fifth column and give me five? I suggest just decategorizing the terms (or moving them under ===Related terms=== of five, fifth, etc.) and removing the categories, unless someone can give a good justification for them. Benwing2 (talk) 21:40, 19 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Mehhh... on a balance, I think it's mildly interesting to see how many five-related expressions and terms there are, all in one place. Terms like wooden anniversary (five-year anniversary) are otherwise not findable from five AFAICT, as they are not etymologically related. The number of languages that have this category, often with quite a few entries in it, suggests that at least some users have found it useful to categorize "five-related" words in their languages. When I saw how many entries were in CAT:en:Five, I worried that the category might be stretching the definition of (semantically-)"related to" in some cases, but the entries I've spot-checked all seem to indeed be semantically related to fiveness, e.g. a lustrum is every five years. Even give me five, which I worried might mean something like "give me a few minutes/moments (not necessary five) to take a break", turns out to mean to slap someone's (five-fingered) hand, though I concede that's still very borderline. I find myself weakly in favour of letting the categories be. - -sche (discuss) 05:56, 20 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think if we maintain these categories, we should try to restrict them to terms that actually have a semantic connection to the number "five" etc., e.g. a group of five whatevers. If you look at the ==Derived terms== that are under English five, there are actually a whole bunch that aren't in Category:en:Five, with no rhyme or reason as to whether a specific term is categorized in that category, and I would argue against woodenly adding all those terms to the category. So for example pentachromic "containing 5 colors" would belong but Five Ashes (name of a village in England) would not, nor plead the fifth (since the numbering of the amendments to the US constitution is fairly random and has no semantic connection to the number five) or fifth column (which no longer has any semantic connection to five anything) or Heinz 57 (which is really stretching things). If this sort of distinction isn't maintainable, then I would continue to argue for deleting the categories. (And as for non-English categories, it's true that there are several of them, but most are very underpopulated, so I'm not sure if they're contributing a lot of value.) Benwing2 (talk) 20:39, 20 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Slovene terms with SNPT pronunciation

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Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Currently, one of Special:UncategorizedCategories. I reckon delete, as this seems completely unrelated to existing categorization, but I'm ignorant of Balto-Slavic languages. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:41, 20 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Agreed (more or less). SNPT seems to be a Slovenian standard for notating tonal and non-tonal pronunciations, which makes this sort of an inverse cleanup category (ideally everything not in this category should have SNPT notation added). But in practice (a) it's being manually added, which isn't maintainable, and (b) there are so many terms without SNPT pronunciation that this category may not be very useful. Benwing2 (talk) 21:13, 20 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Swedish disyllabic words with acute accent

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Latest comment: 1 year ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Currently, one of Special:UncategorizedCategories. I am leaning delete, as this seems completely unrelated to existing categorization, but I'm ignorant of Swedish. Is this something that needs to be a category? Could it be an appendix? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:42, 20 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

There are actually a lot of language-specific categories of a similar nature, categorizing things that don't occur very often in a given language. I think what's going on here is that the pitch of Swedish words is related to whether they had one or more than one syllable in Old Norse, so most words with two syllables should have a grave accent. See this comment in Wikipedia's article Swedish phonology:
The phonemicity of this tonal system is demonstrated in the nearly 300 pairs of two-syllable words differentiated only by their use of either grave or acute accent. Outside of these pairs, the main tendency for tone is that the acute accent appears in monosyllables (since the grave accent cannot appear in monosyllabic words) while the grave accent appears in polysyllabic words.
So I'm not opposed to adding this as a lang-specific category, but ideally it should be auto-added rather than being handled manually. Benwing2 (talk) 20:58, 20 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I am inclined to agree (though I suppose it might have to be manually added in cases where we know a word belongs to the category but no-one competent has added the IPA to auto-categorize it yet). - -sche (discuss) 17:08, 23 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Terms derived from Old French nominative

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Latest comment: 1 year ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Currently, one of Special:UncategorizedCategories. I am somewhat knowledgeable about Romance languages, but not particularly French. This seems like a delete to me and could maybe be an appendix? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:43, 20 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Agreed. This is very similar to the case of Appendix:Survivals of the Latin nominative in Romance, which was originally a set of categories. The problem with those categories was that there are lots of borderline cases and more generally cases needing discussion or explanation, which isn't well-suited to categories. This seems analogous; pinging @Nicodene for comment. Benwing2 (talk) 20:50, 20 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes I would suggest integrating that into the existing appendix. (Anyone can edit it — I don’t claim editorial privileges.)
@Pvanp7: I would not suggest including corps et al. when they had no distinct nominative to begin with. Nicodene (talk) 21:28, 20 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

decategorize categories like Category:ceb:Barangays of Initao, Misamis Oriental, Philippines

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Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion

For reference, a barangay in the Philippines is similar to a neighborhood or district of a city, but is a formal administrative division in that barangays are defined by the (state or local?) government and have fixed boundaries, which is often not the case for neighborhoods or districts in other countries. We do have categories like Category:ceb:Barangays of Misamis Oriental, Philippines where Misamis Oriental is one of the provinces of the Philippines. But someone has manually added pages to a bunch of even more specific categories like Category:ceb:Barangays of Initao, Misamis Oriental, Philippines (which hasn't been created but is non-empty), where Initao is a municipality of about 33,000 people in Misamis Oriental. Having such categories be handled by {{auto cat}} would entail adding a zillion small municipalities to the known-location data in Module:place/locations. Generally only cities and city-like entities with at least one million people are included as known locations in Module:place/locations, both to make the place data take up a reasonable amount of memory and also to avoid an overwhelming maintenance issue (since the population of cities is constantly changing and since smaller municipalities are frequently combined or sometimes broken up). So I simply don't believe we should have such a category as Category:ceb:Barangays of Initao, Misamis Oriental, Philippines, and we should decategorize all pages from these categories and delete any categories that have already been created.

Note that whether barangays and similar entities either do or should pass WT:CFI is an entirely separate issue not up for discussion here. Benwing2 (talk) 21:32, 22 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

For the time being, given the (low) number of entries involved, I agree. If Category:ceb:Barangays of Misamis Oriental, Philippines ends up having thousands of ATTEST-meeting entries, we should revisit ways to make it more manageable. But there are reportedly about 42,000 barangays in the whole country, and 82 provinces, so if the average provincial category has ~500 entries, that seems large but manageable, and I suspect the number which meet CFI may be lower. - -sche (discuss) 16:34, 23 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

German labels

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Latest comment: 1 year ago1 comment1 person in discussion

See [8] (which I cleaned up in the next edit): Module:labels/data/lang/de has a "South Tyrol" label but not a "Tyrol" label (OTOH, Module:labels/data/lang/bar has an undifferentiated "Tyrol" label); it has a "Westphalia" label but not a "North Rhine-Westphalia" label. Should we add some of these labels to the module, or convert the entry to use the labels in the module (Sauerland is in Westphalia), or just leave the entry using non-module labels? - -sche (discuss) 17:04, 23 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Moving Category:Multiplicity (psychology) to Category:Plurality

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Latest comment: 5 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion

compare the move on Wikipedia, the latter term is preferred by the subjects of the label. Juwan (talk) 23:16, 23 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Juwan The category could not be called Category:Plurality by itself because that would suggest grammatical plurality. Either Category:Plurality (psychology) or maybe better, Category:Plural identities. Benwing2 (talk) 23:52, 23 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
makes sense. support either one. Juwan (talk) 05:58, 24 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
On a related note, we also have Category:English multiplicity slang (with its own label). Since the overlap is almost complete, maybe the usage and topic categories can be merged. Einstein2 (talk) 20:20, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Chinese juxtapositional idioms

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Latest comment: 1 year ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Could this be an appendix and every entry just be in Category:Chinese idioms? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:09, 24 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

(Notifying workgroup: Atitarev, Benwing2, Fish bowl, Frigoris, Justinrleung, kc_kennylau, Mar vin kaiser, Michael Ly, ND381, RcAlex36, The dog2, Theknightwho, Tooironic, Wpi, 沈澄心, 恨国党非蠢即坏, LittleWhole): —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:12, 24 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
Most of the entries should already be in Category:Chinese idioms. I personally think this is a good category to keep because the upkeeping of an appendix for something like this seems counterproductive. — justin(r)leung { (t...) | c=› } 04:18, 24 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
This could be handled with a Chinese-specific label juxtapositional idiom that displays as idiomatic or similar and categorizes into both Category:Chinese idioms and Category:Chinese juxtapositional idioms. Benwing2 (talk) 04:25, 24 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi -> Category:Mohandas Gandhi or Category:Mahatma Gandhi

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Latest comment: 6 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion

We have categories for several individuals, which can be seen under Category:Individuals. Except for Gandhi, they all use the common form of their name, not their full name, e.g. Category:Joe Biden, Category:J. R. R. Tolkien, Category:George W. Bush not Category:Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., Category:John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, or Category:George Walker Bush. We should do the same here; this seems a no-brainer. Wikipedia has Gandhi under Mahatma Gandhi, using his appellation Mahatma "Great Soul" rather than his first name; perhaps we should do the same, although I don't know how newspapers and magazines these days cite Gandhi the first time they mention him. Benwing2 (talk) 02:56, 25 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Weak rename to Mohandas Gandhi I really dislike incorporating titles into someone's name as such, but I will grant that "Mahatma Gandhi" is certainly the most common name for this person. I also don't think it's that big a deal to have it be "Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi", but I can see the argument for moving it to a simpler name. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:50, 25 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
I would suggest following the title of the relevant Wikipedia article if there is one, since there is generally consensus that such titles reflect the common name identifying the person. — Sgconlaw (talk) 14:49, 10 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Rename to Mahatma Gandhi per Sgconlaw as the common name.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 13:06, 25 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

creating Category:Sound laws

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Latest comment: 9 months ago7 comments4 people in discussion

Like the corresponding category on Wikipedia, I believe this would be very useful here. Some English entries on sound laws (see my proposed additions) have inconsistently used Category:Phonology and/or the label "(historical linguistics)", the latter of which for some reason doesn't have a category of its own, just generates Category:Linguistics, by the way! A category specifically for sound laws as a subcategory of Phonology(?) would make it obvious which categorization to use as well as give a home to sound laws in general, rather than requiring the user to browse each linguistics topic separately, such as searching Category:Indo-European studies for the Indo-European ones and so on. Whether at some point there should be more specific categories of sound laws, such as Category:Indo-European sound laws, Category:Bantu sound laws etc., I leave an open question. (Note that not all sound laws are historical linguistics, in case one wants to create a category for the latter topic as well.) — 2600:4808:9C30:C500:656F:4777:E18E:88F4 18:09, 26 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

No objection to the overall category except I think it should be renamed to something less ambiguous (maybe 'historical sound changes', as otherwise it suggests something to do with the field of law). I don't think we'd have enough terms for sound changes to justify breaking it into subcats; all or nearly all the sound changes currently listed are Indo-European, and the number of well-known non-Indo-European sound changes combined is probably < 10, which is a conventional marker for when it makes sense to break out a subcat. Benwing2 (talk) 21:44, 28 September 2025 (UTC)Reply
 Support per Ben, tentatively creating it soon. Juwan (talk) 08:51, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
FWIW, I would interpret "historical sound changes" as including not just sound laws (which seems to be the term of art for that narrow concept) but e.g. also any "historical" mergers, splits, etc (for example, if someone creates pane-pain merger analogous to hurry-furry merger). This seems fine to me, as I don't currently see a problem with ruki and pane-pain merger being in the same category, but I want to mention it in case the intention or desire of other people was to create a category for just sound laws specifically. In fact, I wonder if the category should even more broadly be named just "sound changes" so it can include non-historical ones like cot-caught merger, and any modernly-ongoing sound laws...? What do you all think? (Is "(historical) sound changes" too broad, would people add things like amplification, or do we think we can manage to avoid that?) - -sche (discuss) 17:12, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
@-sche I was thinking the same thing, honestly. the equivalent category on Wikipedia serves as a good example, it is not at all to broad! pinging @Benwing2 for comment. Juwan (talk) 19:35, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
It occurs to me that another option is to call the category "phonological sound changes" to rule out things like amplification. Would this cause other problems, or would that be a good name for the category? - -sche (discuss) 22:28, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
@-sche I like "phonological sound changes" and if we ever create a more restrictive "sound laws" version, it should be "phonological sound laws" to clarify that it has nothing to do with the field of law. Benwing2 (talk) 22:49, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:en:Eponymous political ideologies

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Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion

this category is defined outside the tree. it is a pretty interesting idea to have as an actual category. Juwan (talk) 09:15, 27 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

I wonder if we should instead call it 'English ideological eponyms' and make it a grammatical category ("poscat") instead of a topic cat, since the focus is on the form of the word itself instead of its semantic content. We already have CAT:English taxonomic eponyms. Benwing2 (talk) 21:38, 28 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Subcats for personal names

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Latest comment: 1 year ago4 comments2 people in discussion

the category for names are somewhat packed with subcats, making it hard to find what you are looking for. I propose:

Juwan (talk) 13:53, 30 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm confused about this. Category:English names isn't inordinately packed with subcats. Are you referring to Category:English given names? If so you should update the suggested category names to reflect this. If this isn't what you're referring to, you need to be more specific as to what your proposal is. Benwing2 (talk) 19:12, 1 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
I am referring to Category:English given names and Category:English surnames, yes. I am sorry for the confusion. Juwan (talk) 19:50, 1 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Juwan I need a more specific proposal. There are several types of given names, surnames, patronymics and the like under Category:English renderings of foreign personal names, which is currently directly under Category:English names. I assume you want things restructured to have "renderings of foreign given names" and such, but there are many ways to do it, some better than others. Benwing2 (talk) 21:38, 1 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

October 2025

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Ship (fandom) categories by name type

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Latest comment: 1 year ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Should these existing categories be added to the category tree? Perhaps they should all be in a supercategory such as “Category:[en:]Ships (fandom) by name type” (depending on the discussion below, without “(fandom)”), similarly to “Category:[en:]Ships (fandom) by relationship type” (the only other category in “Category:en:Ships (fandom)”). J3133 (talk) 06:49, 2 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

@J3133 Maybe, although maybe they should be placed in the poscat tree, something like Category:English ships (fandom) with initialisms or similar, since they are focusing on the form of the word itself and not the semantics; see below for more comment on the '(fandom)' disambiguator. Benwing2 (talk) 04:20, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Ship (fandom) categories: Remove (fandom) from title?

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Latest comment: 9 months ago8 comments5 people in discussion

“Category:Heterosexual ships (fandom)” was renamed by @-sche on 29 October 2024 to “Category:F/M ships” per Wiktionary:Tea room/2024/October § Sylki, but this title is inconsistent with all the other ship categories by not having “(fandom)”. -sche wrote in the discussion, “(The F/F and M/M cats have yet to be moved/renamed.)” The categories are:

J3133 (talk) 06:49, 2 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would oppose removing '(fandom)' from these categories. The average person has never heard of this sense of "ship" and will be utterly confused by a category name like Category:Incestuous ships or Category:RPF ships. For that matter, I think Category:RPF ships (fandom) should be renamed because it's completely opaque to someone not familiar with fandom shipping; at least the meaning of something like Category:F/F ships (fandom) could be guessed based on the parent category Category:Ships (fandom) by relationship type, but not RPF. I would recommend renaming to Category:Real-person ships (fandom) or Category:Real-person fiction ships (fandom) or similar. Note that Wikipedia puts the relevant article at real person fiction not RPF or any sort of initialism. Benwing2 (talk) 04:16, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
There's an inconsistency between Category:Ships (fandom) by relationship type and Category:Ships with acronyms (fandom) concerning the placement of (fandom). I know little about this community but can we come up with something less awkward like Category:Fandom ships by relationship type, Category:Fandom ships with acronyms, etc.? Benwing2 (talk) 04:22, 3 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
I like the idea of "fandom ships" as the name for the higher-level categories (like "Fandom ships by relationship type"). For the subcateories like "M/M ships", I wonder whether it would be clear that "M/M fandom ships" means "[fandom ships] that are [M/M]", or whether it would be too easy to read as "[the M/M fandom's] [ships]", like ships specific to the furry fandom might be "furry fandom ships". I support expanding "real-person fiction"; maybe we should even expand "male/male" etc. - -sche (discuss) 07:37, 10 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
@-sche I think we should expand M/M to male/male now that you mention it. Would "fandom male-male ships" work? That makes it clear that the ships are male-male, not the fandom. Benwing2 (talk) 07:44, 10 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
(Support and also good spot for an en dash, fandom male–male ships) Still, when you think about it (talk) 00:08, 22 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thinking about this some more, I suppose we should try to be consistent with what order we put "[type/qualifier", "fandom", and "ships" in, and so if we decide that e.g. "Real-person fiction fandom ships" is a good category name, then I can get behind "male-male fandom ships", and we can just revisit this if we ever start having "XYZ fandom ships" categories that mean "[XYZ fandom, the fandom of XYZ] ships" (it seems like we currently don't have any?). Or we could leave "(fandom)" at the end of everything, and have "Male/male ships (fandom)" or "Male-male ships (fandom)", "Real-person fiction ships (fandom)", and logically also "Ships (fandom) by relationship type" etc, but ever since you suggested it I have been thinking "fandom ships" may be a clearer name than "ships (fandom)". (For the record I see no reason to use, and I oppose Still's suggestion to use, the hard to type dashes instead of hyphens or slashes; we seem to generally avoid dashes in page titles.) - -sche (discuss) 21:19, 12 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I also oppose removal. While there may not be "Category:Ships", the word "ship" is much more common to refer to a sea vessel and "shipping" to mailing out parcels than to the very niche online fanfic practice. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:17, 4 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Changing "X Arabic" categories to "X Standard Arabic"

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Latest comment: 11 months ago12 comments4 people in discussion

(Moving here on Benwing's suggestion, will take action soon.) I'd like to go through Module:labels/data/lang/ar and change everything from regional_categories = "Placename" (resulting in the category "Placename Arabic", like Category:Egyptian Arabic) to regional_categories = "Placename Standard" (which would result in e.g. Category:Egyptian Standard Arabic).

This would enable us to cut out what seems to be a source of confusion and is definitely unconventional on our part (in that "X Arabic" outside of Wiktionary refers to X colloquial Arabic, at least for extant X), not to mention asymmetrical when considering that Category:Egyptian Arabic lemmas is something different than Category:Egyptian Arabic.

My dream followup for this would be to recategorize "Placename Variety Arabic", e.g. Category:Jordanian South Levantine Arabic, to just "Placename Arabic" or at most "Placename vernacular Arabic" for concision, e.g. Category:Jordanian Arabic or Category:Jordanian vernacular Arabic. But I'm not as sure about this.

Any objections?

Where is the "not terms used in the separate" text on cat pages defined, by the way? Still, when you think about it (talk) 23:43, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

 Weak support – because it is 2 AM and I am not sure whether there could be better ideas, but I do not see anything that speaks against this clarity either. Fay Freak (talk) 23:58, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think this makes sense to me. Pinging @Fenakhay for more input. Benwing2 (talk) 02:57, 7 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Sorry, I am busy this whole month and not doing much on Wiktionary, so I might respond late. I think a better category name would be Standard Arabic in COUNTRY or Arabic in COUNTRY. — Fenakhay (حيطي · مساهماتي) 13:53, 7 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
I would support this, esp. the former (Standard Arabic in COUNTRY), which (a) emphasizes it's Standard Arabic (not a vernacular lect) and (b) makes a distinction between e.g. "Egyptian" and "Egypt" that further highlights the usage difference. Benwing2 (talk) 03:21, 8 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Nice, I'm fine with this. Three things:
  • Does this need a formal process before we go ahead and do it?
  • Are we fine with treating al-Andalus specially and letting it keep the name "Andalusian Arabic"?
  • Where to go to delete the text "Standard Arabic as spoken in X (not terms used in the separate X Arabic language)"?
Still, when you think about it (talk) 20:08, 8 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Still, when you think about it Comments:
  1. I think you should move this entire post to WT:CLTR, which is where category renames normally occur. Then wait a couple of days for anyone to comment, and assuming no comments, we can go ahead.
  2. Yes, I think that makes sense.
  3. The text is defined in {{ar-regioncat}}. Probably, once we move the categories, we should change the handling of this so the text for the Standard Arabic in COUNTRY categories is handled in the category tree code, rather than in a special-purpose template.
Benwing2 (talk) 02:44, 11 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Sounds good, moved for comments. Still, when you think about it (talk) 16:53, 15 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Went to carry this out and found that some categories, like Category:Palestinian Arabic, are generated by Module:labels/data/regional, which I can't edit. Can an admin go through and remove the "ar" labels in there so that their categories can be generated by Module:labels/data/lang/ar instead? @Benwing2, Fenakhay Still, when you think about it (talk) 00:33, 22 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Still, when you think about it Yeah that module is a holdover from before everything was split into per-language modules. There are five places that "ar" is used currently: Classical, Cypriot, Israeli, Nigerian and Palestinian. Which ones do you need removed? Benwing2 (talk) 00:56, 22 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Would it be possible to move them all (and have Classical use noreg=true)? I think the most visible one out of these is Palestinian, so it's the one I paid the most attention to, but if Module:labels/data/lang is the modern way I figure we could bring all five in.
@Fay Freak, looking at Special:Diff/58844795, is the {{lb|ar|Cyprus}} in reference to a premodern use of Standard Arabic on Cyprus, or is it in reference to a Cypriot Maronite Arabic reflex like rixán or rexán or something of the sort? Still, when you think about it (talk) 03:28, 25 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Still, when you think about it: I tend towards having the labels for plant names for both basilect and acrolect since the observed distinction is not actually that well maintained, similarly to personal names. “How a plant is called” ends up the same in both. How can a difference practically develop? If there is one term in a dialect regionally, and the distribution is not known to have changed, and the term is not new either, we assume the same for the past (or maybe it was mentioned for some medieval author, I don't remember the reasoning process: usually though it is similar to that for the label “Sicily”, on which there are some books and from which there are not few authors). Now I know counterexamples like Maghrebi لتشين (litšīn) which did not catch on in the supposed Modern Standard only because in the Maghreb they used Mashreqi teaching materials (that were familiar with بُرْتُقَال (burtuqāl)): but then it can occur anyway on signs and bills and it would not be overtly gross in Standard Arabic writing.
I don't know why you are fine with treating al-Andalus specially and letting it keep the name "Andalusian Arabic", which is created by different labels than Category:Andalusian Spanish, which I found unproblematic in 2019 since Arabic there died out around 1630. Category:Arabic in al-Andalus sounds fine, and there are forms from vulgar poetry and intercourse and dialect glossaries that go into Category:Andalusian Arabic language. Fay Freak (talk) 09:49, 25 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

(Moved from User talk:Benwing2) Should a category be created for 'English terms with enPR transcription'?

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Latest comment: 11 months ago9 comments5 people in discussion

It would be useful to see which terms have an {{enPR}} transcription and which do not. Pvanp7 (talk) 08:24, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I like the concept. Put enPR it on the level of IPA, which has this category type. Just because we're all ashamed of enPR and worship IPA doesn't mean enPR shouldn't get a category, too. Reminds me of Leah and Rachel. --Geographyinitiative 🎵 (talk) 10:55, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Since {{enPR}} is English-only* unlike {{IPA}}, you can already see all "English terms with enPR transcription" just by looking at the Whatlinkshere list of what terms transclude the template. (That said, it seems like it should be very easy and 'inexpensive' to make the template also generate a category, so I have no objection to that if someone wants to do it.)
*Actually, ~6 'non-English' entries use enPR, five Translingual entries that are presenting English pronunciations, and thilke which I just removed (Middle English has different phonemes from English, so I don't think it should be used, even if some words happen to only use phonemes that English and enPR also have). - -sche (discuss) 04:43, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Pvanp7 (talk) 00:12, 17 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

No particular objection. I'm not sure how useful {{enPR}} transcriptions are in general, but if we have them, it's fine to have a tracking category like this. Benwing2 (talk) 21:04, 17 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
Also should the category name say 'terms with enPR transcription' or 'terms with enPR pronunciation'? The current IPA category uses "pronunciation". Benwing2 (talk) 21:06, 17 October 2025 (UTC)Reply
I wrote enPR transcription because if you were to say the name of this category (in full) it would be 'terms with English Pronunciation pronunciation. But that doesn't really matter, therefore I will name it in line with the already existing category. Pvanp7 (talk) 02:45, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Proposed new labels: asteroid / plastic surgery

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Latest comment: 11 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

User:Benwing2 just let me know that labels now require discussion before they can get created. I wasn't aware of this and recently added "plastic surgery" (Special:Diff/87222656/87437579) and "asteroid" [the equivalent of "star"] (Special:Diff/87437579/87484774). Jberkel 06:57, 22 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Types of chemical elements

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Latest comment: 5 months ago8 comments6 people in discussion

I found Category:en:Types of chemical element and it's quite useful. However, such category doesn't exist in other languages. Maraschino Cherry (talk) 14:14, 25 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

 Support. should be properly incorporated into our category tree. Juwan (talk) 12:57, 4 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
 Support. Also should add Category:en:Obsolete element names, Category:en:Rejected element names, Category:en:Systematic element names to the category tree.
Netizen3102 (talk) 19:23, 13 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
 Support Probably useful in all languages and actually in use in a significant number. DCDuring (talk) 19:29, 13 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Added Cat:Types of chemical elements (plural to match Cat:Types of planets). I think the other three categories listed by @Netizen3102 should be added under the names "X names for chemical elements" rather than "X element names" (the word "element" is ambiguous). Any comments, @Maraschino Cherry, Juwan, DCDuring? This, that and the other (talk) 07:21, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

looks good! :)  Juwan  🕊️🌈 13:48, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
"Chemical elements" definitely better than "elements". DCDuring (talk) 14:57, 12 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support. Einstein2 (talk) 22:52, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
Lua code for the three categories
labels["obsolete names for chemical elements"] = {
	breadcrumb = "obsolete names",
	type = "set",
	description = "default",
	parents = {"chemical elements", "history of science"},
}

labels["rejected names for chemical elements"] = {
	breadcrumb = "rejected names",
	type = "set",
	description = "{{{langnames}}} names for chemical elements, where the elements was actually discovered, and said name for it was proposed but rejected.",
	additional = "This category should only contain entries saying \"rejected name for [element]\", or cases where it is obvious that the name was rejected.",
	parents = {"chemical elements", "history of science"},
}

labels["systematic names for chemical elements"] = {
	breadcrumb = "systematic names",
	type = "set",
	description = "default",
	parents = {"chemical elements", "obsolete scientific theories"},
}

Proposed new label(s): paleoanthropology / palaeoanthropology

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Latest comment: 11 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This single label may be set as a shortcut to label paleontology and anthropology simultaneously, killing two birds with one stone. Maraschino Cherry (talk) 19:21, 25 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Backwards spelling category

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Latest comment: 10 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Requesting the addition of Category:English terms derived from backwards spelling to the category tree so it appears listed in Category:English terms by etymology.

While I'm here, would also like to request defining Category:en:Family_Guy in the category tree Category:en:Television as "English terms derived from and/or related to the animated television series "Family Guy". Vuccala (talk) 09:04, 31 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

 Support Netizen3102 (talk) 03:24, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

November 2025

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Category for furry slang

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Latest comment: 10 months ago5 comments3 people in discussion

the furry community has a lot of its own slang and, as of now, these are mostly just marked with "Internet slang, furry fandom". running a quick PetScan query reveals that there is over 200 terms in these, which is enough to warrant inclusion into the category tree. Juwan (talk) 12:22, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

We do have Category:Furry fandom in the category tree. Is that not sufficient, or do you think it needs a subcategory specifically for slang? What are some terms that would belong in CAT:Furry fandom but not in a CAT:Furry slang? —Mahāgaja · talk 13:02, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
it is our practice to separate terms about X topic and words used by subjects of that topic. my line on dividing slang here is to see whether they are used by people outside the furry fandom. examples: (general descriptors) furry, therian, catgirl, (species) protogen, most if not all of the -sona entries, (practices) pup play. Juwan (talk) 14:18, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
note from later, I realised that the PetScan query had an almost imperceptible typo with the capitalisation of Internet. the corrected version is here. Juwan (talk) 14:21, 10 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, OK, I am persuaded that there are enough terms in general use about furries and enough terms used mainly or only by furries to distinguish the two. But this raises the question of what to do as far as labels go. If you take the approach, which some users do, of using labels to indicate the topic a term pertains to even if that term is in general usage and not restricted at all (so e.g. elbow has an "anatomy" label), then you could leave the current "furry fandom" label as-is and create a separate "furry slang" label. But some other users, including me, dislike using labels merely to indicate the semantic topic of a general-use word, viewing that as the job of the definition and of topic categories, not of a label, so I would argue merely-topical but general-use terms don't need a "furry fandom" label, just a topic category (and indeed, I would expect that this was the original purpose of the "furry fandom" label, to label terms used only by the furry fandom, rather than just to indicate that a term is in some way about furries), and prefer that we clean up existing uses and then make the existing "furry fandom" label (with or without adding "furry slang" as an alias or even making it the main name or display-form) add the more correct "furry slang" cat. - -sche (discuss) 22:20, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Korean terms written in multiple scripts

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Latest comment: 10 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This category is not automatically added when a Korean word contains Arabic numerals. Japanese and Chinese are added automatically, but why do I have to add Korean manually? YeBoy371 (talk) 11:54, 12 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category for DoggoLingo

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Latest comment: 5 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

the category for DoggoLingo should preferably have the following categories as parents. this is helpful as to eliminate redundancy.

  • English internet slang
  • English furry slang (see request above)
  • English childish terms
  • English humorous terms

Juwan (talk) 11:55, 12 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't think DoggoLingo is related to furries very much. BirchTainer (talk) 10:03, 22 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Change description of Category:Eponyms by language to include animals

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Latest comment: 9 months ago7 comments3 people in discussion

E.g., Cebuano Pulgoso, Dutch De Dode Hond, English Dutch angel dragon, Indiana Jones, Mr. Spock, Snickers (categorized by Equinox in 2017), Swedish lex Maja, Turkish kanzi. (Also Category:Taxonomic eponyms by language.) J3133 (talk) 09:10, 17 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hmmm, I suppose this is covered by the extended meaning of eponym (sense 4). However, this sense is marked "loosely, sometimes proscribed". Maybe it's better to just have a separate category "English terms named after animals"? (I'm not sure what the correct form of the category name would be.) — Sgconlaw (talk) 12:31, 17 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Sgconlaw: The description specifies, “real or fictitious people”, but fictitious people are not necessarily non-animal (e.g., Mickey Mouse ring is in the category). If we have a separate category for animals, would these have to be moved? The Wikipedia article does not restrict the term to people. J3133 (talk) 13:07, 17 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
Hmmm, hmmm, I wouldn't call an animal a person in everyday parlance. However, this is a rather philosophical point … — Sgconlaw (talk) 13:15, 17 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Sgconlaw: I am referring to fictional non-human people, not actual animals. If you did not misunderstand, however, I assume you meant terms such as Mickey Mouse ring would be moved to it. J3133 (talk) 13:45, 17 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
I believe the only way we could avoid people putting terms-named-after-animals in the "eponyms" category would be to explicitly rename it to something like "terms derived from the names of [individual] people", and then create a separate "terms derived from the names of [individual] animals" category, because as the current situation shows, the current name does not exclude animals (at least, not clearly enough for people to understand that it does). I don't have a strong preference for whether we make that rename and then set up the separate animal category, or just tweak the current (single, vaguely named) category's description to include animals as OP suggests, although the second option would obviously be easier. - -sche (discuss) 22:05, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
I have changed "people" to "individuals". Does this resolve things, and allow for De Dode Hond to be included (without requiring us to set up a separation between people and animals which editors are unlikely to intuit and maintain)? - -sche (discuss) 22:46, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

December 2025

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Category:en:The Beatles does not have a parent

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Latest comment: 5 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Category:en:The Beatles does not seem to have a parent, however, it does appear as a child in Category:en:Individuals. I believe only admins can modify the category tree and affect how the topics are displayed, but feel free to let me know if I am missing something. -- Alexander Patmos (talk) 04:49, 4 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Done Fixed by adding it to the category tree.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 20:41, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Juwan Nice, thank you! -- Alexander Patmos (talk) 15:34, 22 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Categories for terms derived from sports

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Latest comment: 10 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion

We currently have a category for terms derived from sports Category:English terms derived from sports, which has Category:English terms derived from baseball as the only subcategory. There are plenty of boxing terms that are commonly used as idioms such as in someone's corner, throw in the towel, etc. I think there should be Category:English terms derived from boxing, Category:English terms derived from basketball (e.g. slam dunk, full-court press), Category:English terms derived from horse racing (e.g. neck and neck, down to the wire). Netizen3102 (talk) 18:12, 9 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Also, sorry for directly editing the category module. Netizen3102 (talk) 18:14, 9 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm a little confused about how this works: to "throw in the towel" in boxing literally means a signal to give up and so by extension, it's giving up in some broader context, but a "slam dunk" is both an actual term for a move in basketball as well as by extension any great fit or success. If a term only has a metaphorical meaning, I can see why it would go into the derived-by scheme, but almost all of these will also have a specific and literal meaning in the sport, so wouldn't they be appropriate to put directly in "Category:Sport"? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:24, 9 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:Universities and Category:University

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Latest comment: 8 months ago5 comments3 people in discussion

these two categories are somewhat confusing in how they are used:

  • "Universities" category: terms related to universities.
  • "University" category: names of university.

the latter is only used in English and only with one entry. as such, I propose that they be either merged, renamed or flipped in usage. Juwan (talk) 16:44, 15 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, Berkeley should be moved to CAT:en:Universities, and CAT:University should be removed from the category tree. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:56, 15 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
in my opinion, terms related to univeristies should be at "University" and names of individual universities should be at "Universities" (following the pattern of place names) Juwan (talk) 16:59, 15 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
There is also the issue of university slang. Some university slang terms concern concepts that are directly related to universities themselves (bedder, frosh), so probably belong in a Universities/University cat (could we consider "Tertiary education" / "Higher education"?), while other terms (Pragger-Wagger, walk of shame) refer to concepts that exist outside the university sphere and can live in Cat:English university slang only (which surprisingly doesn't exist!). This, that and the other (talk) 05:50, 16 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Oh, it's called Cat:English student slang for some reason. The label is "university slang", so I think we could do with renaming the category tree to "university slang" to match. This, that and the other (talk) 03:07, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Anti-Semitism should have the parent category Category:Judaism

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Latest comment: 1 month ago9 comments7 people in discussion

And so on for all the language-specific subcategories. --Qualiesin (talk) 04:36, 19 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

No Anti-Jewish bigotry is not a subset or type or kind or variety of Judaism. Is this a joke? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:56, 19 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
CAT:Judaism is a related-to category, not a type category. The category page itself says "It should contain terms directly related to Judaism", and anti-Semitism is definitely directly related to Judaism. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:01, 19 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Anti-Semitism is a bigotry against Jews. The Jewish people have a culture and ethnic history that are not identical to Judaism and anti-Semites have hatred for Jews who do not practice Judaism and they have hatred for persons who are not ethnically Jewish but participate as members of the Jewish people via conversion. Both are topics related to broader Jewish history and culture, but I don't think that anti-Semitism as a topic is a subcategory of Judaism. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:28, 19 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Looking at the subcats of Cat:Forms of discrimination:
I see no reason why the same shouldn't apply here. If anything it looks like a simple oversight to me. This, that and the other (talk) 10:53, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Because hatred of the Jewish people is not the same thing as some kind of opposition to or criticism of Judaism as a religion. An anti-Semite hates an irreligious Jew or one who practices another religion. Judaism is a subset of the broader Jewish culture and civilization, so it would be as if Islamophobia were under Islamic calendar months or Quran. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:09, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
I suppose a person can be anti-Semitic because they dislike Jewish people as an ethnic group, because they dislike Judaism as a religion, or both. Thus, I see some logic in making "Anti-Semitism" a child category of "Judaism". If there were a category for "Jewish people" we could make "Anti-Semitism" a child category of both that category and "Judaism"—but the former category doesn't exist. — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:53, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Support per TTO, assuming the "main" parent is still "Forms of discrimination" (like is the case with "Queerphobia", etc). (Otherwise, if we take Koavf's position, we need to move Queerphobia out of LGBTQ, etc. But I think "anti-Semitism" is very clearly within the scope of "terms directly related to Judaism".) - -sche (discuss) 22:53, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support. MedK1 (talk) 23:36, 1 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Country subcategories

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Latest comment: 9 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

We have Cat:Countries in Melanesia. This is a subcat of Cat:Melanesia but, for some reason, not a subcat of Cat:Countries in Oceania, making that latter category seem incomplete. Presumably this is an oversight? This, that and the other (talk) 01:53, 23 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:States and territories, Category:States and union territories

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Latest comment: 9 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Only Australia has "states and territories"*, while only India has "states and union territories". These categories will therefore only ever have one topic subcat. I suppose Cat:States and territories of Australia and Cat:States and union territories of India should be reparented into both Cat:States and Cat:Territories, and these useless parent cats deleted.

* Well, the US does too, but we seem to handle them differently in our category tree.

This, that and the other (talk) 01:19, 24 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Proposed category: Category:Trucker slang or Category:CB radio slang

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Latest comment: 9 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

For terms like: meat wagon, choke and puke, Schneider egg(s), Evel Knievel, etc.
(See: Appendix:CB slang & w:List of CB slang) -- Alexander Patmos (talk) 23:26, 29 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

January 2026

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Category:Nicknames for fictional characters

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Latest comment: 9 months ago8 comments3 people in discussion

As we have Category:Individuals and Category:Nicknames for individuals (also Category:Couple nicknames), should we likewise have “Category:Nicknames for fictional characters” as a subcategory of Category:Nicknames (the English category thereof currently has 387 entries) and Category:Fictional characters? (Also compare Category:Nicknames for places.) The following entries which currently are in (the language-specific subcategories thereof) both would be moved:

Note: amogus and Pokeyman would possibly also belong. (We also have one entry which would be moved to “Category:[en:]Fictional couple nicknames”, matching Category:Couple nicknames [Dynamic Duo], and four to “Category:[en:]Nicknames for multiple fictional characters” [Gaang, Golden Trio, Krew, Mane Six], if they were created. Note that there is currently no category for nicknames for multiple individuals.) J3133 (talk) 08:57, 2 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support per nom.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 03:57, 3 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Given the number of nicknames for fictional characters which exist, it seems reasonable to me to add a category for them, as you suggest. And yes, if we do so, we should also consider creating a fiction parallel to Category:Couple nicknames. I am not sure Dynamic Duo would belong in it, though; it seems like the Dynamic Duo are usually thought of as a team, like Gaang, not a couple.
We currently have "ship name" categories, both for ships of real people and ships of fictional characters, like Pearlmethyst, but these seem to be intended for hypothetical pairings, given that we categorize e.g. Brangelina as a "couple nickname" rather than a RPF ship. A canonical fictional couple such as Lumity seems to be parallel to Brangelina, and thus, it seems like we could have a "Category:Fictional couple nicknames" category for it (or "Category:Nicknames for fictional couples"?). BTW, Quincest is currently categorized in Category:en:F/F ships (fandom), which AFAICT otherwise contains only fictional ships, so I am tentatively removing it (leaving it in "RPF ships" only). - -sche (discuss) 23:13, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
@-sche: We have political unions (Bushbama, Joebama, Obiden, Sore Loserman) and duos (Jedward, Mofftiss; which would match Dynamic Duo) in Category:en:Couple nicknames; the current description (“names for pairs of people”) does not restrict it to romantic couples. J3133 (talk) 10:00, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
even if the description is broad, that category name is a bit misleading. embarrassingly, for a second, I thought that the category would contain stuff like pookie (petname/nickname used by couples).  Juwan  🕊️🌈 13:57, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Juwan: Are you proposing a move? J3133 (talk) 14:20, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
I have started #Category:Couple nicknames about this. - -sche (discuss) 18:55, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Obesity

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Latest comment: 9 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion

question, how should one categorise terms relating to bodyfat unrelated to obesity? the only category that we do have is somewhat restrictive in this sense.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 03:56, 3 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

CAT:Animal tissues? —Mahāgaja · talk 20:20, 3 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
There are probably enough fat-related terms to merit creating a Category:Fat. - -sche (discuss) 23:15, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Eid al-Fitr

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Latest comment: 5 months ago6 comments4 people in discussion

I don't know how this works but I need to add en:Eid al-Fitr to the category tree. Categories that it is in are Islam, Ramadan and Holidays. ChaoticVermillion (talk) 12:53, 3 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

@ChaoticVermillion: do you mean creating a category called "Category:en:Eid al-Fitr"? What terms would go into this category? — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:25, 3 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
When I created en:Eid al-Fitr, it said that the category is not defined in the category tree. I followed the instructions and it lead me here. The terms that would go in the cateogry include the ones that are already inside it. ChaoticVermillion (talk) 03:55, 4 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
@ChaoticVermillion: While I could be missing something since it's not my religion, it seems like there's a lot of overlap with Category:en:Ramadan. One thing to remember about Wikimedia categories is that they're not about putting things in their proper place- they're a navigation tool to help people find things that have something in common. While there's a lot about Ramadan that has nothing to do with Eid, It seems like Eid wouldn't exist without Ramadan.
The main question is whether someone looking for terms related to Eid isn't going to want to see terms related to Ramadan, or vice versa. English usually has about as many terms on any subject as any other language and there seem to be only a couple dozen terms in both categories combined- not enough for sheer numbers to be a problem. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:53, 4 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
@ChaoticVermillion: OK, I see what you are asking about. Yes, I agree with @Chuck Entz that there is not much point in having both "Category:Eid al-Fitr" and "Category:Ramadan". Eid is the festival marking the end of Ramadan, so I think we should retain "Category:Ramadan" and place all entries in that category. — Sgconlaw (talk) 11:21, 4 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
closing this thread and moving the associated entries to Category:Ramadan.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 15:48, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Add Category:en:Islamophobia to modules

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Latest comment: 1 month ago8 comments4 people in discussion

A well-populated category (48 entries). Cat:Anti-Semitism is already in the modules. This, that and the other (talk) 10:54, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support and while we're at it, I think we should rename anti-Semitism to antisemitism (both in the category and as the primary mainspace entry) as the latter spelling seems more common these days per N-grams and is the spelling preferred both by newspapers and by organizations that fight antisemitism (per this 2024 article from Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/05/antisemitism-jew-hatred-bigotry-spelling-protests/). Benwing2 (talk) 22:57, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
This is fascinating: the last time this came up (in a small discussion in 2020), I found that anti-Semitism was (always and) still more common on Ngrams, whereas today, Ngrams suggests the opposite, that antisemitism has always been more common. AFAICT it is not, according to those Ngrams, that antisemitism has overtaken anti-Semitism in the past several years: instead, there is a difference between Google's 2019 corpus (in which anti-Semitism was more common in every year) and their current corpus (where they assert that antisemitism has been more common in every year). I am in fact somewhat sceptical that antisemitism was always more common even in e.g. the 1950s — my anecdotal experience, perusing Google Books results themselves, is different — so I wonder if Google has done something like change from interpreting anti- [line break] semitism as anti-semitism to interpreting it as antisemitism. Nonetheless, I have noticed the shift you mention to preferring antisemitism in recent years, and don't oppose changing to prefer antisemitism here. The one difficulty I think we may run into is that anti-Semitism has some uncommon senses which may be rare enough to be only thrice-attested in the hyphenated spelling, so moving the "main" definition to antisemitism may mean bifurcating the entry, some senses in one spelling and some in the other. (This wouldn't be the first time a word had some senses only in one spelling, though; others are breakfast, besagew, blacksnake.) - -sche (discuss) 23:46, 9 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support. MedK1 (talk) 23:37, 1 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Done Done; added Category:Islamophobia and renamed Category:Anti-Semitism -> Category:Antisemitism. Benwing2 (talk) 00:29, 2 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing: Wait. What about -sche's points against antisemitism (no hyphen)? I thought that, per those arguments, the form with the hyphen was the better one. MedK1 (talk) 15:44, 3 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
I suppose the issue with the rare senses principally affects the entry anti-Semitism, not the category Category:Anti-Semitism / Category:Antisemitism, which we seem to restrict to the usual sense ("anti-Jewish"). As for Ngrams changing how it counts things and making it hard to be sure which form is more common... uh-oh, they may have changed things again, in a way that pulls the rug (which they had only recently placed!) out from under the move: AFAICT Ngram Viewer's count has changed back, and it once again lists "anti-Semitism" as having always been (up to the last year in their data, only a few years ago) more common, just like they did in 2020, and contrary to what they were doing in January when Ben and I both found that they were listing "antisemitism" as (currently and always) more common. Weird. - -sche (discuss) 16:29, 3 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Well, I asked Google AI the question which spelling is more common "anti-Semitism" or "antisemitism" and it says:
Antisemitism (without a hyphen) is increasingly the more common and preferred spelling among major human rights organizations, scholars, and media outlets, though "anti-Semitism" remains used by some traditional dictionaries and government bodies.
This tracks with what I've encountered in Wikipedia and elsewhere. The problem with Ngrams results is it can depend a lot on which corpus they use, how exactly they normalize the corpus, etc. Benwing2 (talk) 17:27, 3 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Couple nicknames

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Latest comment: 5 months ago6 comments3 people in discussion

As pointed out in #Category:Nicknames for fictional characters above, Category:Couple nicknames currently contains not only (romantic) couples' nicknames, but also real or hypothetical duos like Mofftiss, Joebama and Bushbama. On a balance, I am thinking we should recategorize those non-couple entries. Alternatively, we could rename the category to something like Category:Duo nicknames if we want it to clearly include non-couples, but surely some sets of >2 also have nicknames (Gang of Eight? compare, on the fictional side, Dynamic Duo vs the >2 Gaang and Krew), and does it make sense to put 'non-couple groups of 2' and 'groups of >2' in different categories? So my inclination is to use "Couple nicknames" only for romantic couple nicknames, and put "Group nicknames" (whether groups of 2 or >2) in another category if there are enough of them to fill a category. Thoughts? - -sche (discuss) 18:51, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support the proposal per nom.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 20:44, 10 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support creating “Group nicknames”. J3133 (talk) 07:44, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
@-sche: Should these be “Nicknames for couples” and “Nicknames for groups” instead to match the other categories (e.g., we use “Nicknames for places” rather than “Place nicknames”)? J3133 (talk) 07:00, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
revisiting this entry. @-sche @J3133 what do you think of having "Nicknames for couples" and "Nicknames for groups" as per J3133. if no objections to this, creating and moving these.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 19:55, 19 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
Sounds fine. - -sche (discuss) 13:31, 21 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:English diminutive interjections

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Latest comment: 8 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion

The category only contains 4 entries, all variants on upsy-daisy (although upadaisy actually just seems to be derived from up). They may be cutesy or childish, but I don't think it makes sense to call these "diminutives" in the grammatical sense.

The other "diminutive interjections" categories, Category:Hungarian diminutive interjections and Category:Romanian diminutive interjections, are from languages with a clearly marked diminutive suffix - while I'm not convinced this category is that useful even for those languages, I'm not suggesting these for deletion. Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:02, 14 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Delete / empty the English category per nom. This is another instance of the phenomenon that if a category exists in some language, people will try to find ways to apply it to other languages. - -sche (discuss) 16:54, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Would it be better to keep the category and add a filter to catch efforts to populate it? I don't know whether broad use of this technique would cause problems. DCDuring (talk) 17:50, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Automobiles → Category:Motor vehicles or split

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Latest comment: 5 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion

We define automobile as essentially synonymous with car, and the usage note emphasises this. However, the category contains entries for buses and trucks as well. Plus, I feel the term automobile has a very dated sound to it.

I offer two alternatives:

  1. Rename Cat:Automobiles to [[:Cat:Road vehicles Cat:Motor vehicles. We can then make some bicycle-related category a subcategory of that cat to keep any pedants happy.
  2. Split Cat:Automobiles into Cat:Cars, Cat:Trucks (pondian issue with naming?), Cat:Buses etc.

Personally I'd go for option 1 as the simpler way to proceed. This, that and the other (talk) 01:30, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

What's wrong with Category:Motor vehicles? That covers both cars and trucks while excluding human- and animal-powered things like bicycles and horsecarts (and wind-powered vehicles used in land sailing). It also covers off-road vehicles. In my idiolect, aircraft/spacecraft and watercraft are never referred to as vehicles, though I suppose they are in some technical sense. Then there's the exclusion of small motor-driven things like electric bicycles mentioned at Thesaurus:vehicle. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:20, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yes! I don't know how I didn't think of that. Good point. I've changed it. This, that and the other (talk) 05:29, 15 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
I  Support the move to Motor vehicles. Also, it is currently classified as a "related-to" category despite overwhelmingly containing types of motor vehicles, so I propose changing it to a set/type category. (There is Category:Automotive for related terms.) I also tentatively support adding the more specific subcats (Cars, Buses, etc.) to the category tree, someone might take the effort and populate them sometime. Einstein2 (talk) 22:14, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Create category for Tok Pisin

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Latest comment: 8 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Please make Category:tpi:Isopterans a subcategory of Category:tpi:Insects. SnappyDragonPennyroyal (talk) 09:34, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Instead, I've renamed CAT:tpi:Isopterans as CAT:tpi:Termites to match every other language's CAT:Termites. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:00, 19 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Chinese tone indicators is in the wrong subcategory

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Latest comment: 8 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion

It looks like we confused tone (pitch) with tone (semantics) and wrongly put the literal tone markers in a subcategory of Internet slang as if they were like emojis. Since category editing is now restricted to admins and a few others I cant handle this on my own anymore. In the event that this is actually correct (that they use tone markers metaphorically), we need to document them better. Thanks, —Soap— 22:41, 23 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

also, given that it's also in Category:Tone indicators by language, i wonder if the categorization is automatic, and that we'll need to rename the category in order to get it out of the wrong place. i dont know the details of how it works. thanks to anyone who helps. —Soap— 22:52, 23 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
It was manually categorised and clearly a mistake on Kwami's part, so I've gone and removed all the links to this cat. Saph (talk) 00:54, 24 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Soap: There's nothing wrong with the the way the category is represented in the category structure. The problem is that it's the wrong category for Chinese tone symbols. Category:English tone indicators was used for entries like /s well before @Kwamikagami got the idea of using this category for Chinese. We need to come up with a name for things used to indicate phonetic tone, not conversational tone. As for the method of categorization, these were all added manually, not via any template. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:15, 24 January 2026 (UTC)Reply
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Latest comment: 2 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Moved from Module talk:labels/data/lang/en:

@Benwing2: Predicative(ly) currently links to the glossary, whereas attributive(ly) links to Appendix:English nouns, but adjectives can be either. J3133 (talk) 14:30, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

It was added here by @Surjection (“keep attributive linked to where it is currently going”) when moving from Module:labels/data, where it was present since the label was migrated from {{attributive}}. J3133 (talk) 18:05, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Note that the glossary entry has a link to the appendix. J3133 (talk) 18:29, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

J3133 (talk) 11:22, 27 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support. Makes sense to me. TranqyPoo [💬 | ✏️] 18:54, 1 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

February 2026

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Lithuanian parts of speech by stress pattern

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Latest comment: 8 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I was digging around in the categories for stress patterns and noticed that Category:Lithuanian_adjectives_with_stress_pattern_3a and Category:Lithuanian_adjectives_with_stress_pattern_3b were not nested under Category:Lithuanian_adjectives_by_stress_pattern like the other stress pattern categories for 1, 2, 3 and 4. It's not clear why this should be, but I figured it would be easy enough to fix by setting them up similar to the others, but when I went to save my edits I got the error warning that {{auto cat}} should be used. So I added it too and then got the boilerplate "This category is not defined in Wiktionary's category tree." So now I am wondering, how can this be rectified? We are still missing categories for other parts of speech by stress pattern, so this will come up again soon. Is there a correct way for users to create categories in the future? Helrasincke (talk) 15:23, 1 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

Entries that don't exist by language

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Latest comment: 5 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

proposing that this category be updated to "Soft-redirect entries by language" as this makes their purpose clearer. these should also be a subcat of Category:Soft redirects.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 14:39, 3 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support. Einstein2 (talk) 19:57, 7 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Aircraft into Vehicles

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Latest comment: 8 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion

CAT:Aircraft is not currently in CAT:Vehicles, but it definitely should be; we even define the word aircraft using the word vehicle. I propose changing Aircraft's parents from {"technology", "aviation"} to {"vehicles", "aviation"}. Kedymera (talk) 15:56, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

Are warplanes, such as fighter aircraft vehicles in normal human's usage of the terms? DCDuring (talk) 16:02, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
I don't see why not, especially if military land equipment like tanks and jeeps are vehicles. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:22, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
There's more work to be done. What about missiles and the casing of an explosive artillery round? Rocket, missile, and aircraft are overlapping terms. Neither diving bell and submersible are not in a category that ultimately is included in Category:Vehicles. Are unpowered things like shopping carts, trailers, wagons included? Is something a vehicle if it isn't reusable, like a cluster shell that carries submunitions or a lunar lander? DCDuring (talk) 17:16, 4 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

Sex toys

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Latest comment: 2 months ago5 comments4 people in discussion

requesting a set category for sex toys. the below code would be added to Module:category tree/topic/Sex: 

labels["sex toys"] = {
	type = "set",
	description = "default",
	parents = {"sex", "toys"},
}

 Juwan  🕊️🌈 23:02, 5 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is this what is meant by fan service? It does seem responsive to the actual interests of a significant number of users, judging by repeated counts of most-visited entries. DCDuring (talk) 00:10, 6 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
it is a law of the internet that sex and porn will be searched for more than anything else.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 00:22, 6 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support. -- Ping me User:内存溢出的猫 plz!📝瞄？💬喵! 18:28, 26 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support. TranqyPoo [💬 | ✏️] 18:52, 1 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Blackfoot morphological categories

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Latest comment: 8 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I've been cleaning up entries in Category:Blackfoot lemmas where {{C}}/{{topics}} was used for morphological categories instead of the correct {{cln}}/{{catlangname}}. As is documented at Template:topics, {{C}} is for topical categories (e.g. Category:lang:Topic), while {{cln}} is for grammatical/morphological categories (format Category:Language name category).

However, I've noticed that Category:Blackfoot class 1 stems, Category:Blackfoot class 2 stems and Category:Blackfoot stems by class (with a few more in waahkiáápiksistsiko-) aren't being linked properly despite the template corrections. I've tried starting to write for Module:category tree/lang/bla, but it isn't properly finished or set up yet.

Could someone who has module editing rights sort this out? Also pinging @Ovey 56 as they're the primary contributor to Blackfoot entries at the moment — wanted to give a heads up about these changes and they're much more suited to explain how this stem class system should be organised — oi yeah nah mate amazingJUSSO ... [ɡəˈdæɪ̯]! 09:28, 8 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

hi! i'm sorry but i guess i was making a lot of mess on the categories. i'm very new to wiktionary, especially considering "big" edits. i didn't even know there was a difference between {{c}} and {{cln}}. i'll help you fixing those entries and use the correct templates from now on. thank you for helping fix them already! Junior Santos (talk) 13:24, 8 February 2026 (UTC)Reply
No worries at all, it’s just that those new Blackfoot-specific categories still aren’t properly linked even after cleanup, and that’s where a more dedicated module editor can better handle that part. — oi yeah nah mate amazingJUSSO ... [ɡəˈdæɪ̯]! 04:45, 10 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

2 categories to module

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Latest comment: 7 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

requesting a set category for history of Burkina Faso. the below code would be added to Module:category tree/topic/History: 

for _, country_parent in ipairs {
	{"Burkina Faso", "history of Africa"},
}

and requesting set category too for countryballs. the below code would be added to Module:category tree/topic/Culture: 

labels["Countrytballs"] = {
	type = "related-to",
	wikidata = 88870,
	description = "default",
	parents = {"Internet memes"},
}

Ігнат Лостюк (talk) 20:09, 15 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Ігнат Лостюк: You might want to check your spelling. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:31, 16 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

Splitting Category:Creole or pidgin languages

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Latest comment: 5 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion

Currently, Category:Creole or pidgin languages contains two different kinds of categories: main language categories (like Category:Ambonese Malay language) and categories of languages with a given lexifier (like Category:Afrikaans-based creole or pidgin languages). I think this would be easier to navigate if the latter were in their own subcategory, something along the lines of Category:Creole or pidgin languages by lexifier. jlwoodwa (talk) 19:22, 28 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

Good idea — sounds good to me. Waldyrious (talk) 22:08, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support Emanuele6 (talk) 10:29, 16 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support. as no objections were raised, I will split this soon.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 19:39, 19 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

March 2026

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Category for words formed from chemical symbols

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Latest comment: 7 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Currently, we have a category for English calculator words, which are words that can be formed based on a seven-segment display turned upside down (e.g. 07734 → hELLO → hello). I think there should be a Category:English periodic table words for words that can be formed from chemical symbols (e.g. nickel + cerium → NiCe → nice). Just like the calculator words category, it would be in Category:English terms by orthographic property and capitalization would be ignored. Netizen3102 (talk) 18:23, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Categorization of Greek verbs ending in -σσω

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Latest comment: 6 months ago5 comments3 people in discussion

(Notifying workgroup: Saltmarsh, Sarri.greek, Rossyxan, FocalPoint): I propose the addition of the following verb-conjugation category to Module:category tree/lang/el to accommodate 1st conjugation (stem-stressed) verbs which have an imperfective stem in -σσ-, perfective stem in -ξ- and perfect passive participle stem in -γ- 

-- Category:Greek consonant-stem verbs in -s-
groups["φυλάσσω"] = {"1st", "σσω", "consonant-stem verbs in -s-", "" }

Examples with a conjugation table:

Other verbs for inclusion within this category:

Grateful for your thoughts about this. Voltaigne (talk) 22:17, 2 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Dear M @Voltaigne, thank you for your hard work compiling these so nicely. I have to check more. As for the Mocudle.. there is already in place (see below, the -po example). At the moment I can only see the Category:Greek verbs conjugating like 'κηρύσσω' (i.27+28 at [9] {{R:Jordanidou 2004}} She does not accept some formal types, placing them outside Standard Modern Greek. For learned / dated forms I check #Babiniotis2002 (one by one) and {{R:el:Reverse}}
My verb-work: Indeed the User:Sarri.greek/verbs/so is still 'red' at User:Sarri.greek/verbs. My working page is User:Sarri.greek/lab. The -σσω verbs alternate with a more formal -ττω, but not all of them. There are some exceptions where we have only the -ττω. Plus some exceptions with for sibilants -s- User:Sarri.greek/lab#to (also check #so). Note that some base-verbs (of derivatives) do not exist in Modern Greek. I promise to create that /so page.
First, I rewrite things that robots have erased from Cateogories of previous years. Then, I place with Hide/Show all my notes on the verbs as I found them. Example: page User:Sarri.greek/verbs/po The Category:Greek verbs conjugating like 'παραλείπω' has everything needed at the breadcrumb from the Module. I remember -vaguely the module-. I was not involved with it. At the moment I am hindered by serious health problems; please proceed as you wish: your work is always exemplary! ‑‑Sarri.greek ♫ I 14:45, 3 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
PS My mentor, dear @Saltmarsh who taught me wikt-writing from my first step in wiktionary, says that Greek verbs are anarchic. We are bound to find exceptions! ‑‑Sarri.greek ♫ I 14:55, 3 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Sarri.greek: Thank you for responding so quickly and, as ever, so helpfully. I was aware that {{R:Jordanidou 2004}} uses κηρύσσω as the paradigmatic verb for this inflection type, but I was initially reluctant to follow suit precisely because it has the seemingly well used alternative form κηρύττω, whereas few others among the aforelisted verbs appear to have a such an alternate in -ττω in the modern language, judging by my perusal of {{R:el:DSMG}} (e.g. διαφυλάσσω (diafylásso)).
After reflection, I think that for the time being it would be better to use the existing Category:Greek verbs conjugating like 'κηρύσσω' and add it to the category tree as I described above instead of creating a new category based on φυλάσσω (fylásso), for the sake of parsimony of category creation. Inclusion in the category tree provides the immediate benefit of easier navigation to this (IMO!) important group of verbs. We can always amend the implementation of this later if we decide that more granular categorization is warranted for different subgroups of these verbs (e.g. based on existence of alternative forms or other features).
Thanks again, and I wish you the best of health. Voltaigne (talk) 19:05, 3 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Μέντωρ has retired to the hills - hence his delay in replying. I'm sorry - I have nothing constructive to add to the discussion, I bow to everything which Sarri might recommend. It's good to see that that there are others labouring in the vineyard !   — Saltmarsh☮ 10:35, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *nem- (to bend)

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Latest comment: 6 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Category:Terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *nem- (to distribute)

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I think these categories and all their subcategories should be moved to "Category:Terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *nem- (bend)" and "Category:Terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *nem- (distribute)", since it doesn't appear to be the norm to add to to such category names. — Sgconlaw (talk) 14:16, 9 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

started a discussion on Beer Parlour (where it is likelier to be seen) as I have wondered this for a while.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 13:18, 25 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Doki Doki Literature Club

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Latest comment: 2 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Requesting a category for Doki Doki Literature Club. Add to Module:category tree/topic/Culture: 

labels["Doki Doki Literature Club!"] = {
	type = "related-to",
    wikidata = 42266827,
	displaytitle ="''Doki Doki Literature Club!''",
    description ="=the visual novel video game ''Doki Doki Literature Club!''",
	parents = {"American fiction", "video games"},
}

Randomcanarian (talk) 23:56, 11 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Randomcanarian Are there really enough terms that would pass WT:FICTION to need a category for navigating between them? Chuck Entz (talk) 05:20, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
There are ~10 shipping terms I can add (I will get to that when I can). I thought it would be okay to make a category for those because I saw that the Omori category had only 4 entries (I added some more afterwards). Randomcanarian (talk) 05:49, 12 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
I intend to propose a vote to update the scope of WT:FICTION that would make categories like these obsolete (unless the category is used for etymological reasons). Anyone, please remind me in a few months time about this post if I forget. TranqyPoo [💬 | ✏️] 18:48, 1 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Proto-Indo-European hysterokinetic root nouns

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Latest comment: 6 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hysterokinetic root nouns by definition do not exist. Minimally, a nominal (noun or adjective) can be hysterokinetic only if it has suffixal accent. This is of course only possible if there is a suffix. Root nouns by definition do not contain a suffix, only a root and an ending, so they cannot be hysterokinetic. How it took so long for this to be addressed is beyond me. — Ganjabarah (talk) 03:08, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

I just added some quotations to hysterokinetic showing that some, but not all IEists don't define it in terms of root vs. suffix accent placement.--Urszag (talk) 03:26, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Seal script (篆書) request

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Latest comment: 19 days ago3 comments3 people in discussion

With the upcoming encoding of seal script, the predecessor logographic script immediately predating modern han script (漢字/汉字).

https://www.unicode.org/wg2/docs/n5344R2-SmallSealProposal.pdf

I created this article (for the seal script character "Seal script character 辵") as a trial character for formatting & community discussion etc. The full release of 11,328 seal script (篆書/Seal script character 篆Seal script character 書) characters will occur on September the 15th, 2026.

I am requesting a Category for this newly encoded script be connected to the tree.

Cheers & happy 篆書ing ⿱鬱⿰鬱鬱(鬱鬱鬱ㄓㄥ) 22:39, 17 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Similar to Category:Nüshu_script_characters, I think we can name it as Category:Seal_script_characters, as we create entries by lemmas, not characters. — Ping me User:内存溢出的猫 plz!📝瞄？💬喵! 11:03, 19 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
@内存溢出的猫 With Unicode 18.0 arriving a few days ago, I have created a few seal script entries as well as moved 𽓍 to its newly encoded codepoint. I have added Category:Seal_script_characters as the script category to all the entries I have created so far, if we could get this added to the tree that would be awesome
Thanks so much! :) -HanziKanji 21:03, 21 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category for Beers request

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Latest comment: 6 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion

A lot of languages and have named beer types (e.g. lambic). It would be good to have someting similar like Category:Liqueurs and it's language categories. JhowieNitnek (talk) 19:30, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Note that "Category:Beer" already exists. If a new category is to be created, the scope of that category vis-à-vis "Category:Beer" will need to be made clear. — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:24, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
My bad I didn't know! I think it isn't necessery to have this request then JhowieNitnek (talk) 20:38, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category for Zythology

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Latest comment: 5 months ago10 comments4 people in discussion

It would be good to have a Zythology category for beer and brewing related terminology and that it works with Template:lb similar to Category:Astronomy. JhowieNitnek (talk) 19:36, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

If we are to have such a category, I suggest it be named something more understandable such as beermaking. — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:05, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think that is to narrow of a term as zythology is also the study of beermaking, it could be a synonym like asdroid is in Category:Astronomy. JhowieNitnek (talk) 20:17, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
@JhowieNitnek: I don't understand your point. Could you please clarify? — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:20, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Sorry, let me rephrase. I think calling it “beermaking” would not capture the full scope of zythology. Zythology specifically refers to the study or science of beer and its production, so “beermaking” alone is not sufficient, though it can still be used as an additional category label. JhowieNitnek (talk) 20:36, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
@JhowieNitnek: thanks. I'm not really seeing how there would be terms that relate to "the study or science of beer and its production" but not relate to "beermaking". I feel "beermaking" is broad enough to cover "the study or science of beer and its production". In general, I think it would be preferable to select terms which are generally understandable and not excessively technical, unless no suitable non-technical term exists. — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:59, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
Also, note that "Category:Beer" already exists. If a new category is to be created, the scope of that category vis-à-vis "Category:Beer" will need to be made clear. — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:25, 28 March 2026 (UTC)Reply
I agree we should look for a clear term like beermaking since most people looking up entries won't know the terminology beforehand. Just wanted to add that we currently have both category:en:Beer and category:en:Beers, the latter of which has but a single entry. i was actually looking at getting it deleted since it'd be easier to do that than to go through and change Beer to Beers on a hundred entries, but maybe now's a good time to put all our options on the table. —Soap— 20:38, 30 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Soap: what about retaining “Category:Beers” for types of beer, and renaming “Category:Beer” to “Beermaking”? — Sgconlaw (talk) 21:07, 30 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
If we have categories that have common names and jargon names, we should use redirects so that someone will be able to easily find the proper name and tools like HotCat will add the correct category. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:56, 30 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:en:Idioms about Colors

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Latest comment: 4 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Category:en:Idioms involving colors

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I suggest adding "Category:en:Idioms involving colors" to the category tree. I redirected "Category:en:Idioms about Colors" to it to correct the capitalization, and because the entries in the category are not about colors but have the names of colors in them. — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:15, 30 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

Agree (unless anyone has an even better name to suggest). - -sche (discuss) 19:24, 3 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
The category was deleted out of process by @Fenakhay on 20 May and all entries were removed from the category by @YeBoy371 on 22 May. Could you please provide an explanation? I suggest recreating and repopulating the category. Einstein2 (talk) 21:22, 25 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I have undone the removals from and the deletion of Category:en:Idioms involving colors. If anyone has a better name, let them propose a rename; otherwise, it looks like we agree this is a useful category. If anyone is pressed about it not being in the modules / {{auto cat}} structure, let them add it to the modules. - -sche (discuss) 22:30, 26 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Issues with auto-inclusion in categories

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Latest comment: 6 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The entries month and year, and possibly other entries, are included in the categories Category:en:Gregorian calendar months, Category:en:Hebrew calendar months, and Category:en:Islamic calendar months, despite the guidelines at the top of each category saying this shouldn't be the case: 

NOTE: This is a name category. It should contain names of specific Gregorian calendar months, not merely terms related to Gregorian calendar months, and should also not contain general terms for types of Gregorian calendar months.

--Qualiesin (talk) 15:22, 31 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

April 2026

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Category:Duilian and especially Category:zh:Duilian

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Latest comment: 5 months ago11 comments7 people in discussion

I purpose for a category about duilian, which is a special linguistic feature originated from Chinese.

The definition, reason why it is most suitable among the synonyms, and related Chinese terms (entries which fit Category:zh:Duilian) of duilian are shown in the entry duilian.

The desired code, such as the parents, is shown. It probably belongs to Module:category tree/topic/Communication. 

labels["duilian"] = {
	type = "related-to",
	description = "default",
	parents = {"rhetoric", "Chinese", "poetry", "two"},
}

Beefwiki (talk) 10:05, 5 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Beefwiki: what are some terms which might be put into this category? — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:06, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
For Category:zh:Duilian, plenty of them are listed in duilian#Usage notes and 對聯#Synonyms; for Category:en:Duilian, duilian itself as well as its synonyms and hyponyms (such as New Year couplet); for other languages, I am not certain at which specific terms, but there should be also quite a valuable number of them are in the CJKV languages due to the shared culture, such as duilian in those languages. Beefwiki (talk) 05:28, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Sgconlaw: On the other hand, may we categorize those related pages (such as putting {{c|zh|Duilian}} into 春聯／春联 (chūnlián)) to ease the checking work before the category is created? Also, are we certain that this category should be named as Duilian instead of Duilians? Beefwiki (talk) 05:28, 16 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Beefwiki, Sgconlaw: Heads up that pings don't work unless you sign your comment as you write the ping (i.e. coming back to sign later does not send a ping). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:55, 4 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Then thanks for your repinging, else I probably cannot catch Sgconlaw's attention. Beefwiki (talk) 01:58, 4 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Beefwiki, Sgconlaw, Koavf:: Linking to the user's user page in an edit summary always works, so fixing a ping will, in effect, succeed if you say something like "[[:User:...]]: adding missing signature to ping" in the edit summary. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:41, 4 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:English terms suffixed with -er (action noun)

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Latest comment: 5 months ago9 comments2 people in discussion

Seems to be a duplicate of "Category:English terms suffixed with -er (agent noun)". — Sgconlaw (talk) 16:16, 5 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Sgconlaw: This is a different sense of -er. J3133 (talk) 05:01, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
@J3133: I see. In that case, can a suitable usage note be added to the category page with a link to the corresponding sense? — Sgconlaw (talk) 07:34, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Sgconlaw: There is no such parameter for affix categories. J3133 (talk) 07:45, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
@J3133: just add it to the category page outside the {{auto cat}} template? — Sgconlaw (talk) 07:50, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Sgconlaw: Although other similar categories do not have it, you may indeed add it there as it does not seem to be forbidden. J3133 (talk) 07:57, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
See Special:Diff/90066414 (with lines as in Category:Latin terms suffixed with -atus). J3133 (talk) 08:25, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Sgconlaw: Is this resolved? J3133 (talk) 15:48, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yes, resolved. Thanks. — Sgconlaw (talk) 22:06, 30 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Request Category:Xiaomi

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Latest comment: 1 month ago5 comments2 people in discussion

As there has been Category:Apple Inc., Category:Huawei, etc. — Ping me User:内存溢出的猫 plz!📝瞄？💬喵! 13:01, 10 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@内存溢出的猫 what are some entries that you plan to categorise under this?  Juwan  🕊️🌈 18:57, 19 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Juwan Please see Category:zh:Xiaomi. — Ping me User:内存溢出的猫 plz!📝瞄？💬喵! 00:53, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Juwan As the category has been cleaned, see: 米猴 (mǐhóu), 米粉 (mǐfěn), 糇, 雷布斯 (Léibùsī), 小米高考 (Xiǎomǐ Gāokǎo), HOVM, 冲高, and of course Xiaomi, Tiểu Mễ. Are there any reasons of not adding a category? —— Ping me User:内存溢出的猫 plz!📝瞄？💬喵! 22:01, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
@内存溢出的猫 noting that the quantity of terms is stil quite small. the category for Huawei for example has some 20 lemmas (that is, excluding simplified altforms). Apple Inc. has some 100 in English, for comparison. Juwan 🕊️🌈 22:25, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Request label srn:Winti

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Latest comment: 5 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Hello, could we create a label for meanings related to the Afro-Surinamese Winti religion in Sranan Tongo lemmas? See these lemmas for example:

Appolodorus1 (talk) 14:48, 12 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Appolodorus1: no objection to this. If there are no objections in a month's time I'll add the label (ping me if I forget). — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:12, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support per nom.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 15:13, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:jbo:Parts of speech

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Latest comment: 5 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I propose deleting these categories outside the tree which also exist in a messy space between part-of-speech category and topic cat. They're not maintained and the need to be added manually to (presumably) every entry. Pinging User:TranqyPoo, the sole active editor of Lojban. Ultimateria (talk) 18:42, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Delete. I agree with Ultimateria. To add, Lojban describes its terms with its unique POS categories (such as: brivla, cmavo, cmene); nouns, adjectives and the like do not exist in Lojban. These categories were seemingly created to link how a Lojban term can be translated into an English POS. It is a neat feature, but not as useful as the original editors may have thought; even I (as a student of this language) do not use these categories. I do not think we should categorize Lojban terms based on English POS. If, in the future, the Lojban community decides to re-create such categories, I highly recommend they demonstrate use-cases to establish rationale. TranqyPoo [💬 | ✏️] 20:04, 14 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Russian abstract verbs

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Latest comment: 5 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Category:Russian abstract verbs should be in Category:Russian verbs, like its counterpart Category:Russian unidirectional verbs 1998alexkane (talk) 21:18, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@1998alexkane per this this discussion on BP (relevant diff), abstract is now under the label multidirectional. these entries should be moved over appropriately.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 18:51, 19 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Malay WeChat slang

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Latest comment: 4 months ago5 comments3 people in discussion

"Malay WeChat slang" is what we call as bahasa WeChat or bahasa Wicet which altered spelling of Malay words, mainly used in WeChat. For example: korunk is alternative form of korang. There's other example yet to be added:

awuck < awak
titew < kita
nuck < nak
aque, aqu < aku

The category should be placed under Category:Malay internet slang. Mirlim (talk) 15:19, 17 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

comment: as someone who is unfamiliar with Malay language and its Internet culture, would the "text messaging slang" label not be enough? the entry also says that this is not exclusive to WeChat.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 18:47, 19 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yeah it's not exclusive yet mainly used at WeChat. It's like you use the word poggers on YouTube but people eventually know the word is a slang from Twitch. Same as the word korunk, even it is used in other social media, people still label the word as "WeChat language". Mirlim (talk) 12:46, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
very good analogue!  Support.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 15:12, 20 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
This reminds me of 滴滴 (dīdī, “to DM someone”), which is an onomatopoeic from the sounds of notifications of Tencent QQ; also 擴列／扩列 (kuòliè, “to expand friends list”) is also a QQ slang. However, these terms have been widely used elsewhere, so I don't know if "people eventually know" one term is a WeChat slang justifies the category. Does the proposed category describe the origin or etymology of these terms, or their current usage? Nevertheless, if bahasa Wicet is indeed a widely recognized concept (like having an Wikipedia article), I'd not object to it. — Ping me User:内存溢出的猫 plz!📝瞄？💬喵! 11:17, 19 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Contranyms by language to Category:Contronyms by language

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Latest comment: 1 month ago4 comments3 people in discussion

The entry (contronym) has already been moved from contranym. J3133 (talk) 12:35, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Rename per nom. Though the relative usage frequency difference between the two terms at Google NGrams is small, the difference in favor of contronym seems somewhat greater at Scholar. I think we can and should give weight to corpora like Scholar for our choice of forms for what we create here, like definitions, category names, labels, usage notes. That would not make us a prescriptivist dictionary. DCDuring (talk) 15:25, 18 April 2026 (UTC)Reply
Rename, o does seem to be more common ([10]). - -sche (discuss) 19:20, 3 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
I have changed uses of contranym (and its adjectival forms) in entries, also having moved Appendix:English contronyms earlier; only the category remains to be moved. J3133 (talk) 14:18, 1 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Sranan Tongo multiword terms

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Latest comment: 5 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Presently, a hyphen in Sranan Tongo entries erroneously causes them to be listed in this category, whereas a hyphen in Sranan Tongo ortography is mainly used to clarify the pronunciation of vowels. Compare umadagu, uma-agu. Could this be fixed? Appolodorus1 (talk) 10:25, 22 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Canarian Spanish

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Latest comment: 5 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I suggest making Category:Canarian Spanish a direct subcategory of Category:Regional Spanish, and not part of the subategory Category:Peninsular Spanish, as per Wikipedia: "Peninsular Spanish (...) is the set of varieties of the Spanish language spoken in Peninsular Spain. This construct is often framed in opposition to varieties from the Americas and the Canary Islands". Canarian Spanish is in no way part of Peninsular Spanish. Nacor Afonso (talk) 10:43, 22 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

  •  Support Unfortunately, "Peninsular Spanish" is being used as a proxy for "Varieties of Spanish as spoken in Spain" in spite of the fact that parts of Spain are in Africa. Instead, it should be "Spanish Spanish" or "Spanish as spoken in Spain" or some such and then Canarian Spanish could be a subset. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:26, 22 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

May 2026

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Category:Drug culture

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Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion

While the set category Category:Recreational drugs exists, we are missing a category for terms related to the use of recreational drugs. Therefore, I would suggest the creation of Category:Drug culture (akin to w:Category:Drug culture) as a topic category (potentially under Category:Recreation). Alternatively, a more transparent (although longer) name could be Category:Recreational drug use. Some example entries: junkie, IDU, drug lab, drug dealer, homebake, cocainist, Adderalled, narcosub, dime, stoned.

If created, we could think about making the topic categories Category:Heroin and Category:Marijuana (currently placed in Category:Recreational drugs) subcategories of the new category. In addition, Category:Smoking may also be moved here. Einstein2 (talk) 22:28, 2 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support In Chinese, we have o (ōu, “to overdose”), 溜冰 (liūbīng, “to smoke methamphetamine”, literally “to skate on ice”), pr80 (pì'àrbālíng, “pregabalin”), 晚安 (wǎn'ān, “amantadine”, literally “good night”), 雪塵／雪尘 (xuěchén, “3-Me-PCPy”, literally “snow dust”), etc. (Some words like 美式草藥／美式草药 (Měishì cǎoyào, “cannabis”, literally “American-style herbal medicine”) are mainly used outside the culture, so I don't know if they fit into this category.) —— Ping me User:内存溢出的猫 plz!📝瞄？💬喵! 10:38, 19 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support Don't forgot in Chinese, there are also some which have longer history, such as 追龍 / 追龙 (zeoi1 lung4, “to chase the dragon”), 癮君子／瘾君子 (yǐnjūnzǐ, “drug addict”), 鴉片戰爭／鸦片战争 (Yāpiàn Zhànzhēng, “Opium War”), 虎門銷煙／虎门销烟 (Hǔmén xiāoyān, “Destruction of opium at Humen”) and those coined recently like take嘢. Beefwiki (talk) 06:26, 17 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Placename category tree

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Latest comment: 5 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Maybe these issues are already known but here are some inconsistencies (and proposals) about our placename category tree:

Proposal #1: Categories of the type "[abbreviations/former names/etc.] of [place types]" (e.g., Category:Abbreviations of states) are now only placed in "[nicknames/abbreviations/etc.] of places". These should also be placed in "[place types]" (e.g., Category:States). The hierarchy seems fine for some types of terms (e.g. nicknames) but not for others.

Proposal #3: Categories of the type "[place types] of [country]" (e.g., Category:Counties of Hungary) are placed directly in "country" (e.g., Category:Hungary). These should follow the hierarchy of the general categories instead, e.g., Category:Counties of Hungary ⊂ Category:Political divisions of Hungary ⊂ Category:Places in Hungary ⊂ Category:Hungary.

Proposal #3: A number of very specific categories of the type "[nicknames/abbreviations/etc.] of [divisions] of [country]" (e.g., Category:Abbreviations of states of Brazil) are now placed directly in Category:Political divisions of specific countries and their country category (e.g., Category:Brazil). I propose moving these to the narrower category (e.g. Category:States of Brazil) and removing them from the "Political divisions of specific countries" and "[country]" categories.

Proposal #1

any other I've missed

Proposal #1

etc.

Proposal #3

+ remove Category:Political divisions of specific countries and the country category

Einstein2 (talk) 17:16, 4 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Non-integrated categories: round 2

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Latest comment: 5 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Since the discussion in the #non-integrated topical categories and what to do about them section above has stalled, maybe these issues can be discussed in smaller groups for quicker consensus. My proposals for fiction-related categories:

Additional suggestions in other categories based on stuff I noticed:

Einstein2 (talk) 18:05, 4 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Request: add "ontology" category under "metaphysics"

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Latest comment: 4 months ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Please add "ontology" as a topic category under "metaphysics" in Module:category tree/topic cat/data/Philosophy. The category page Category:en:Ontology already exists with {auto cat}, but the module doesn't have an entry for it yet.

The desired entry: 

   labels["ontology"] = {
       description = "{{{langname}}} terms related to ontology.",
       parents = {"metaphysics"},
   }

Thanks!!

Maddox (talk) 05:56, 5 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Do you have a set of words that would be added to this category? TranqyPoo [💬 | ✏️] 00:05, 16 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Of course.. hylomorphism, haecceity, quiddity, phenomenon, noumenon, haecceitism, antihaecceitism, meinongianism, noneism, actualism, possibilism, holism, hylozoism, hylism,atomism, realism, antirealism, and mereology, to name a few. Maddox (talk) 05:56, 16 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support. Thank you! TranqyPoo [💬 | ✏️] 14:17, 16 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Add displayname feature to classifier handling

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Latest comment: 5 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi, in Module:category tree/grammatical classes, categories of the form [[Category:<langname> nouns classified by <classifier>]]. Currently, this classifier doesn't have a displaytitle, and I think it should mirroring affix categories in Module:category tree/affixes and compounds. A tentative implementation would be (current lines L400-408): 

local display_cls = require("Module:script utilities").tag_text(classifier, data.lang, data.sc, "term"),
return {
			description = "{{{langname}}} " .. pos .. " using " .. display_cls .. " as their classifier.",
			breadcrumb = classifier,
			umbrella = false,
			parents = {{
				name = pos .. " by classifier",
				sort = (data.lang:makeSortKey(classifier)),
			}},
			displaytitle = "{{{langname}}} " .. pos .. " classified by " .. display_cls,
		}

Thanks, cheers. sware • 🗣 • 🏲 20:50, 8 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Some Proto-Indo-European suffix categories

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Latest comment: 4 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

For example, this category Category:Proto-Indo-European amphikinetic neuter root suffixes does not exist, and trying to create it with {{auto cat}} results in an error. There are a few other similar categories out there, can we create them? -- Missileboi (talk) 12:22, 14 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Not every category has to be created with {{auto cat}}. Given the unlikelihood of a "Category:Amphikinetic neuter root suffixes by languages" containing any other category than this one, there's little point in putting it into the category tree. Just add CAT:Proto-Indo-European suffixes by inflection type manually; that one will accept {{auto cat}}. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:44, 16 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Kaqchikel derived verbs as defined category

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Latest comment: 4 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Would it be possible to have 'Category:Kaqchikel derived verbs' defined in the tree? In Kaqchikel (and other Mayan languages), the conjugation of verbs depends on whether they are derived or not. The definition could potentially be: Derived verbs are built upon or modified from non-verb roots

Some examples would include:

Kummathra.xo (talk) 23:10, 16 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Nicknames for politicians

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Latest comment: 2 months ago5 comments5 people in discussion

I propose this as a subset/child of Category:Nicknames for individuals. As in it, entries should be categorized per language (en:Nicknames for politicians etc.). The rationale is that the vast majority of entries in that cat are politicians (do look into it: they take up much of the category), with the others being celebrities etc. They tend to be nicknamed (oft derogatorily) more often than anyone else, so I think there ought to be a separate category to accommodate them all, leaving NFI only for individuals not directly involved in politics in any way. (Kings & emperors, current and historical, should remain in NFI, for they don't fit the common definition/concept of politician.) For more information, please see the latest changes that I made (in preparation for this; I'll update the module soon) to Template:nickname's docs, especially the documentation for the new |pol= parameter. Bytekast (talk) 19:17, 17 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support. — Ping me User:内存溢出的猫 plz!📝瞄？💬喵! 11:21, 19 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 04:36, 25 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support. Trooper57 (talk) 01:41, 6 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support. TranqyPoo [💬 | ✏️] 18:35, 1 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Xi Jinping and Category:Mao Zedong

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Latest comment: 4 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

per Category:Donald Trump. Please just see the search results in site. — Ping me User:内存溢出的猫 plz!📝瞄？💬喵! 11:31, 19 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

About Blackfoot categories

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Latest comment: 4 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Recently I've added some categories based out of Frantz and Weber's works on the Blackfoot language. Those are:

I also added one category (Category:Blackfoot mixed-class compounds) and would like the addition of Category:Blackfoot suffixed class 1 noun stems. These two help a lot the categorisation and understanding of the language. Junior Santos (talk) 17:07, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Marijuana

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Latest comment: 1 month ago6 comments5 people in discussion

simple proposal, moving "Marijuana" to "Cannabis" as the broader and more formal term.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 21:52, 20 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Support. - -sche (discuss) 22:01, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support. TranqyPoo [💬 | ✏️] 18:34, 1 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Rescinded per Chuck Entz's response. Additionally, (at least) the US government officially refers to the drug as marijuana. TranqyPoo [💬 | ✏️] 20:08, 1 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
One complication: hemp, used in rope, cords, canvas, and a surprising variety of other things (hempcrete, hempmilk. etc.), comes from a species of Cannabis not used for psychoactive properties. There are even terms that allude to its use in execution by hanging (hempen cravat, hempen widow, etc.) Chuck Entz (talk) 19:22, 1 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Oppose per Chuck Entz's response. MedK1 (talk) 23:34, 1 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:English terms derived from backwards spelling

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Latest comment: 4 months ago6 comments5 people in discussion

Created on 31 October 2025 by Vuccala with {{auto cat}} but not in the category tree; it was deleted on 20 May by Fenakhay but the pages remain in it. J3133 (talk) 18:57, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Convert to appendix This seems like something that is just trivial enough to be an appendix, but this belongs as a navigable part of the category tree. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:11, 23 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
There are a suprising number of these- more than enough to support a category (at least in English). Note that this is different from back slang, which we already have categories for. Those are speech varieties that regularly transform things from the regular language to obscure them, along the same lines as rhyming slang. Some of these terms are also filter-avoidance spellings. and some are just more-or-less-arbitrary variations on existing terms that were created to be different, but still connected to the original term.
From the above, it would seem that this is a mixed bag of different things, and it partly overlaps with categories we already have. That doesn't really determine whether we want it. In assessing potential categories, people tend to overlook a very basic fact: Mediawiki categories aren't about classifying things, but about navigating between pages that have something in common. The main consideration should be whether people will want to navigate between these entries and will need a category to help them do so. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:38, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
The name is not the best, but there seem to be enough terms of this type to merit categorization under some name. See Anadrome for more. - -sche (discuss) 07:29, 24 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
Perhaps English terms by etymology → English reverse spellings/English invented anadromes → English back slang? Einstein2 (talk) 21:10, 25 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Einstein2: It does not necessarily apply to the whole term; e.g., Eroom's law, star meat, Zinbiel algebra. J3133 (talk) 14:34, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Traditional medicine

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Latest comment: 4 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

also "folk medicine". as an alternative to Category:Alternative medicine. Wikipedia splits these two and as such wondering whether we should as well.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 04:34, 25 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Papiamentu dialects

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Latest comment: 4 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Please add:

I've also noticed that Category:New Caledonian English and Category:New Caledonian Javanese are missing.

Thanks! ~2026-28939-90 (talk) 13:16, 25 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Twisty puzzles

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Latest comment: 4 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion

For stuff like Pyraminx, Gigaminx, Kilominx, Rubik's cube, etc. Frog x Lover (talk) 14:56, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Noticed in the past: we have a lot of these (some editor was a fan?) but in general they are brand names, and we do not have similar classes of entry for e.g. commercial board games. ~2026-31633-29 (talk) 14:58, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
This seems like a rather ill-defined category. — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:34, 1 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
How so? Frog x Lover (talk) 19:08, 1 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:English terms suffixed with -y (noun)

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Latest comment: 4 months ago5 comments2 people in discussion

There is no sense of -y with the ID “noun”. See Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup § Similarly named categories for some English terms suffixed with -y. J3133 (talk) 17:44, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Should we associate it with etymology 2, sense 4, of -y ("Forming colloquial nouns signifying the person or thing associated with suffixed noun or verb")? Maybe "(noun)" can be changed to "(nouns from other nouns or from verbs)". — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:23, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
As I mentioned, that sense already has its own ID, “associated” (see “Category:English terms suffixed with -y (associated)”). J3133 (talk) 18:27, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply
@J3133: ah, thanks. In that case, I have no objection if "Category:English terms suffixed with -y (noun)" is deleted. But "(associated)" is also, in my view, a poor name. Can we decide on something more obvious? — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:45, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:English terms suffixed with -y (nominalizer)

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In connection with the above, I feel that this category also needs renaming. Apparently it relates to etymology 2, sense 5 ("Forming nouns relative to an adjective"), but this is not at all evident from the word "nominalizer". Can it be renamed to something like "(nouns from adjectives)"? — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:23, 27 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

June 2026

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Proposed label or subcategory: public transport

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Latest comment: 4 months ago5 comments3 people in discussion

Compare ov-chipkaart, touch in, TAMKAS. Appolodorus1 (talk) 08:47, 1 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

What do you mean by public? Any shared of sharable transport that one can use if one can pay or otherwise qualify for? Space travel? Taxis? Rickshaws? Uber? DCDuring (talk) 13:53, 1 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I mean public transport. Appolodorus1 (talk) 16:49, 1 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
So the category is only UK. etc.? In the US something similar is called public transportation or mass transit.
Are other dictionaries wrong to define it as:
  1. "a system of vehicles such as buses and trains that operate at regular times on fixed routes and are used by the public" (Cambridge Engl. Dict.)
  2. "the system of buses, trains, etc. provided by the government or by companies, which people use to travel from one place to another" (Oxford Adv. Learner's Dict.)
  3. "a system of buses, trains, etc, running on fixed routes, on which the public may travel" (Collins)
  4. "mass transit" (MWOnline)?
WP has "Public transport systems typically operate on fixed routes and schedules and charge a standardized fare intended to cover operating costs, often supplemented by public funding where required.
"There is no universally fixed definition of which modes are included."
WP refers to the 1. absence of fixed schedules on some high-density transport; 2. intercity public transport including airlines; 3. share taxis and other demand-responsive services and paratransit (no fixed routes).
w:Free public transport provides examples in which fares are not charged. Other cases exist where free public transport exists to discourage auto use while encouraging tourism and shopping.
The essence of the matter would seem to be a "system" of vehicles of almost any kind, from aircraft to rickshaws, stage coaches, and ferries, eg. Alaska Marine Highway.
So, what would be included in such a category? Presumably not the organizations providing transportation systems for human passengers, ie, proper nouns generally not included in enwikt. That would leave us with a population of equipment, supplies, and infrastructure used in such systems and the types of systems and types of organizations managing such systems. DCDuring (talk) 18:32, 1 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support as a subcat of Cat:Transport. the definitions are loose, yes. the category may include information on say, buses, ferries, rail transport, etc. for passengers, including proper nouns for the organisations and some stations. though, this may also be further split into subcats. which I am fine with.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 10:07, 9 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Old South Arabian category wording and treatment

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Latest comment: 4 months ago6 comments3 people in discussion

The autogenerated text at Category:Old South Arabian language is misleading. It currently treats Old South Arabian as a single language, e.g. “This is the main category of the Old South Arabian language” and “It is an extinct language that was formerly spoken in Yemen.”

I suggest changing the category treatment/description so that Old South Arabian is described as a conventional cover term for the extinct epigraphic Semitic languages of pre-Islamic South Arabia, rather than as a single language. Suggested wording:

Old South Arabian, also called Ancient South Arabian, Sayhadic, or Epigraphic South Arabian, is a conventional cover term for a group of extinct Semitic languages attested in inscriptions from pre-Islamic South Arabia. The principal Old South Arabian languages are Sabaic, Minaic, Qatabanic, and Hadramitic. The term is used here for the language group and its shared inscriptional tradition, not necessarily for a single spoken language.

This affects at least: Category:Old South Arabian language the autogenerated description produced by the language category module the relation between Old South Arabian and the individual language categories: 

** Category:Sabaean language
** Category:Minaean language
** Category:Qatabanian language
** Category:Hadrami language

A possible technical solution would be a special-case override in the language category module for Old South Arabian, preserving the existing category while replacing the misleading autogenerated “single language formerly spoken in Yemen” wording. If this is considered a language-treatment issue rather than only a category-description issue, it may need to be discussed at WT as well. Sanali.SD (talk) 19:35, 1 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Sanali.SD: you obviously don't understand what categories are for or how they work, and the ones you've been creating will have to be deleted or moved to another namespace. Please stop! Chuck Entz (talk) 06:13, 2 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. I’ll avoid manually creating or rewriting category pages.
That said, I don’t think my main point has been addressed. The confusing part is specifically the generated distinction between Category:Old South Arabian languages and Category:Old South Arabian language. The former is the family category for sem-osa, while the latter is a language category for sem-srb. This makes the generated wording look as if “Old South Arabian” is both the family and a separate language. The family category also lists “Old South Arabian (sem-srb)” under “Old South Arabian (sem-osa)”, and the sem-srb language category then shows Razihi under it, which is confusing and, as far as I understand, contested.
I’m not asking to hand-edit the category pages. I’m asking whether the underlying language/family data is intended to work this way. Should sem-srb remain canonically labelled “Old South Arabian”, or should it be renamed/relabelled somehow to avoid conflicting with the family name sem-osa? If correction is appropriate, where should that be requested or changed? Sanali.SD (talk) 16:21, 2 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think my original request was partly in the right place because the problem appears through generated category wording. But I now understand that the deeper issue is a language treatment rather than category prose: whether sem-srb should be canonically labelled “Old South Arabian” when sem-osa is also “Old South Arabian languages”. If that is a WT:LOL/WT:LOF or language-treatment issue rather than a CLTR issue, I’m happy to take it to WT:LTR instead. Sanali.SD (talk) 16:32, 2 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Sanali.SD: If the inscription is short enough, you may not know which individual language it is, so you can add entries with quotes under Category:Old South Arabian language. In DASI you have a dedicated “Corpus of Undefined Ancient South Arabian Language inscriptions”, it does not mean “Undefined Ancient South Arabian Language” is claimed a language. For similar reasons we have kept Category:Aramaic language, as the individual “languages” are better comprehended as a list of corpora with conjectured interconnections rather than social realities, and because we aren’t sure we have more specific names for all of the representants, and probably this is also the case for Category:Nahuatl language.
Of course, in many cases, editors from outside the field added Sabaean entries as Old South Arabian, so often you can move them, even though the same term exists in Qatabanian and so on (they probably did not know, and in most cases anything is quoted as Old South Arabian it is from Beeston-Ghul-Müller-Ryckmans 1982 directly or indirectly, or something else Sabaean). You are making cool progress.
I, too, find the Razihi and Faifi theses overstated, but I believe we achieved to make the Semitic tree quite right save for the nesting of these and some Ancient North Arabian ones; the material becomes increasingly exotic. Fay Freak (talk) 13:49, 3 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, that helps clarify the purpose of the category. I had been reading “Old South Arabian language” too literally as a separate language claim, rather than as a residual/undifferentiated OSA bucket for short or uncertain inscriptions. The comparison with DASI’s undefined ASA corpus makes sense.
I’ll continue to follow DASI and treat genuinely uncertain or too-short material under Old South Arabian rather than forcing an individual language. Thanks for the encouragement also. Sanali.SD (talk) 02:21, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Humble request to add Khiamniungan Naga (kix) to "terms suffixed with" category

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Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Please add the language code 'kix' (Khiamniungan Naga) to the "suffixed with" label in the etymology category data module.

The script for this language is already registered in the system. This will allow "Category:Khiamniungan Naga terms suffixed with" to display properly.

Thank you so much. ExfactoLexander (talk) 22:06, 4 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

@ExfactoLexander sorry for the delay. would you be able to clarify what is this request about? this type of categorisation is automatic, only needing the editor to then create the redlinked category.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 11:55, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Possible new category Category:Fortifications

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Latest comment: 4 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I think adding a category for all of the various military defense buildings and such would be worth it. Obviously, it would be a child to Category:Military, but I am unsure what other categories should be parents.

Not all fortifications are necessarily buildings (e.g. embankments), but some are at the very least architectural arrangements (e.g. crenellations).

However, it could make sense to also include other type of cover, that I think might not be considered architecture (e.g. mantlets). We could also consider placing such entries in a separate category?

As to the category's name, I consider the word fortifications to encompass this concept well enough. Kaloan-koko (talk) 04:05, 8 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Proposal for label and category: Laws by country

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Latest comment: 3 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

in parallel to the "COUNTRY politics" categories, I propose also "COUNTRY law" as labels to mark terms relating to laws or general governance in a given country. in many entries, editors mistakingly add "COUNTRY" as a label, which instead gives the "COUNTRY variety" category. this option gives another option to distinguish terms used in a particular country regardless of language variety.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 11:50, 12 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category: Navajo Language

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Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I need a new reference template in the Navajo Reference Templates for the book "the Navajo Language, a grammar and colloquial dictionary", not for the 1987 edition, but for the 1980 edition, the template should be something close to {{YM1992|page=X}}, and have its text as "* Robert W. Young and William Morgan, Sr. (1980), The Navajo Language: A Grammar and Colloquial Dictionary, Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, page X." I don't know how to referenciate to the page of the templates, but it should be found at Navajo Language > Navajo templates > Navajo link templates > Navajo reference templates. I also need a new category for Navajo Frames, the frames are composed of adverbials and other enclitic elements to create negations, conditions and etcetera; I think it should go to the multiword terms category, that is found in Navajo Language > Navajo lemmas > Navajo multiword terms. Ishidahibikius (talk) 18:00, 15 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm ignorant of Navajo or of frames as a part of speech, so I can't speak to that, but for your first request, if you need help making a template, Wiktionary:Grease Pit is probably the best place to ask for that kind of technical help. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:48, 15 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Sign linguistics

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Latest comment: 3 months ago6 comments4 people in discussion

This request, in total, include the creations of a category and a label. A correction is also desired.

Terms in category (I will remove the redlinks today or tomorrow): all synonyms of sign language, signer, sign linguistics, nonmanual feature, dominant hand, non-dominant hand, handshape, mouthing, sign gloss, sign, sign name, initialized sign, Makaton, manual alphabet, fingerspell, fingerspelling, facing, orientation, Signalong, signing space, Bi-Bi (bilingual–bicultural education), manualism, classifier (the linguistics sense). To find more words for the category, how could I search in Wiktionary for entries with the link "sign language"?

I do not understand the standards when singular or plural category names are used, but I believe mixing with Category:Sign languages is worse. Perhaps this category could be named as Category:Sign language?

Codes

Create for this category: (Module:category tree/topic/Communication or Module:category tree/topic/Sciences?) 

labels["sign linguistics"] = {
	type = "related-to",
	description = "{{{langname}}} terms used in sign linguistics, the study and analysis of [[sign language]].",
	additional = "{{also|Category:{{{langcode}}}:Sign languages}}", -- Only if the correction below cannot be applied
	parents = {"linguistics", "deafness"},
}

(Module:labels/data/topical) 

labels["sign linguistics"] = {
	aliases = {"sign languages", "sign languages"},
	Wiktionary = true,
	topical_categories = true,
}

Correct for: 

labels["sign languages"] = {
	type = "name",
	description = "default",
	parents = {"sign linguistics", "languages"},
}

Beefwiki (talk) 11:24, 16 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Re: "To find more words for the category, how could I search in Wiktionary for entries with the link "sign language"?":
  1. Go to sign language
  2. Press Alt+Shift+J for "Special:WhatLinksHere/sign_language".
Re: "Category:Sign languages", as you can see at (e.g.) Category:en:Sign languages, this is a category just for terms that are themselves the names of sign languages (e.g. "ASL" and "Martha's Vineyard Sign Language" and "Pro-Tactile"), not generally terms related to the concept of signing, such as handshape. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 12:22, 16 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
It's worth noting that based on its name, "Category:Sign languages" should be a linguistic family category, and that is what other categories expect it to be, despite its own catboiler saying otherwise: see Wiktionary:Grease pit/2026/January#make Category:Sign languages a family like other infrastructure expects it to be. For comparison, Category:Germanic languages is not a category housing the Wiktionary entries of the names of the Germanic languages ([[German]], [[English]], etc), nor terms related to them ([[Grimm's law]], etc). - -sche (discuss) 16:44, 26 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Sign languages

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Category:Sign languages is a name category. proposing then the new Category:Sign linguistics for topics relating to sign languages. this likely wouldn't be ideal as there are topics related topics that are not studied directly in academic linguistics, though it still works.  Juwan  🕊️🌈 09:03, 1 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Under its current name, "Category:Sign languages" is expected by other categories to be (i.e., is linked to by them as if it were) a linguistic (albeit non-genetic) family category, just like Category:Germanic languages is a linguistic (in that case, genetic) category and not a category for the Wiktionary entries of the names of the Germanic languages ([[German]], [[English]], etc), and like Category:Caucasian languages was a linguistic (non-genetic) family category, and even after that linguistic category was deleted, we have not (re)used the category to house entries on Caucasian languages ([[Armenian]], [[Georgian]], etc). So, I suggest making "Category:Sign languages" a language-grouping category like it wants to be, and if we want to have a category for putting the names of sign languages in, either put them into the Category:Sign linguistics category along with other terms related to sign languages, or create a category like "Individual sign languages" or "Named sign languages".
I will remark that this is yet another situation where systematically putting all categories' intended scopes into their names with pseudo-prefixes, as I have proposed previously, would solve the problem: "Category:Sign languages" as a language family like "Category:Germanic languages" etc, and then in any cases where a topically-related-to category was wanted, "Category:topic:Sign languages" and "Category:topic:Germanic languages" etc for terms about the topic like fingerspelling and Grimm's law, and in any cases where a set category to house the entries of the names of all X languages was wanted, "Category:set:Sign languages" and "Category:set:Germanic languages" etc. - -sche (discuss) 16:23, 1 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support that idea. (plus thank you to Koavf for redireting the discussion here).  Juwan  🕊️🌈 17:36, 1 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Aircraft should be in Category:Vehicles

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Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

All other types of vehicles are there as subcategories: Category:Automobiles, Category:Bicycle types, Category:Carriages, Category:Construction vehicles, Category:Military vehicles, Category:Motorcycles, Category:Spacecraft, and Category:Watercraft. And of course, this should be applied within each language's categories as well. Qualiesin (talk) 18:28, 17 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support, while change its categories from "Technology", "Aviation" into "Vehicles", "Aviation", since "Vehicles" < "Machines" < "Technology". Beefwiki (talk) 07:09, 18 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Journalism

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Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Category:Journalism should be a subcategory of Category:Mass media. Probably a subcategory of Category:Publishing too, and a parent category for Category:Periodicals. And of course, this should be applied within each language's categories too. Qualiesin (talk) 19:17, 17 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Qualiesin: Some journalism is found outside the realm of mass media, especially if you consider its entire history. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:20, 18 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category request: add "philosophy of mind" under "philosophy"

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Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion

(Notifying workgroup: Andrew Sheedy): mimicking this request.

I kindly request to add "philosophy of mind" as a topic category under "philosophy" in Module:category tree/topic/Philosophy. It is a branch of philosophy; contains words, such as: epiphenomenalism, automatism, substance dualism, property dualism and more to follow.

The desired entry: 

   labels["philosophy of mind"] = {
       description = "{{{langname}}} terms related to philosophy of mind.",
       topright = "{{wikipedia|Philosophy of mind}}",
       parents = {"philosophy"},
   }

TranqyPoo [💬 | ✏️] 03:40, 20 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support Lots of jargon under philosophy. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:10, 20 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support. I also think we are missing a lot of other topic categories that we should have: e.g., analytic philosophy, Aristotelianism, Continental philosophy, Hegelianism, logic (though I think that's found elsewhere), phenomenology, political philosophy, to name a few. I'm also not sure I like "theology" being including under philosophy, but oh, well. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 06:03, 21 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

English journalistic terms

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Latest comment: 3 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion

The sole member of Category:English journalistic terms is Alpine republic. It seems that the label journalese categorizes to this whereas journalism categorizes to Category:en:Mass media. Should we merge the categories, or are there some terms in Mass media that would be better off moved to journalistic? The situation is similar with other languages .... Category:Journalistic_terms_by_language has only a few dozen terms in total, so the merger could be done across the board. i can see a case for keeping journalistic in that it's intended for words that journalists use, whereas mass media is for terms about journalism ... but if we keep them, i think a lot of terms should be moved. —Soap— 22:14, 21 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Note: I actually delteted this section right after I posted it thinking it was redundant to the (coincidental) post just a few sections above, but now that i look at it, these are two unrelated requests. —Soap— 22:16, 21 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
We will always have these issues as long as we use {{label}} for both "register" and "topic". I think the mistake is the use of {{label}} for topics, as "topics" and "register" often overlap. I would have thought that a well-written definition (not a one-word gloss or use of jargon) with a good hypernym (for a noun definition) would make topic obvious. Relying on precise use of terms like "journalese" vs. "journalism" can reduce confusion only if used in accordance with the thoughts of those who create the label mappings to in-line displays and categories. The use of {{label}} for grammatical and syntactic-grammatical matters doesn't often seem to lead to confusion with other uses. DCDuring (talk) 12:50, 24 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:English terms derived from postal codes

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Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion

A specific kind of metonymy, where a postal code is used to refer to an institution with that code or the kind of people who live there. For example, see 90210, D4, M16, SW1, SW1A, SW19 and W1A, as well as nizz. Is it worth having a category for these (and are there other examples)? I don't want Wiktionary to become a catalogue of every postcode, obviously, but many postcodes have acquired a cultural meaning beyond just literally the area they refer to. Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:56, 24 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

I wonder whether this could be combined with similarly functioning terms, as street addresses, eg, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, 10 Downing Street, and old US telephone mnemonics, eg, Butterfield 8. DCDuring (talk) 12:41, 24 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
We have "Category:English metonyms". Is it necessary to subdivide that category further? — Sgconlaw (talk) 13:12, 24 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
Is bighorn a metonym of an individual in species Ovis canadensis? DCDuring (talk) 15:13, 24 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Cultivars

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Latest comment: 2 months ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Currently we have Category:Apple cultivars, Category:Cherry cultivars, Category:Pear cultivars, Category:Banana cultivars only. There are a bunch of other cultivated species, only categorized under there family / subfamily categories. -- Ping me User:内存溢出的猫 plz!📝瞄？💬喵! 18:23, 26 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support The category tree should be Category:Fruits > Category:Cultivars > Category:Apple cultivars, Category:Banana cultivars, Category:Cherry cultivars, Category:Pear cultivars, etc. Netizen3102 (talk) 05:23, 4 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
A cultivar is a variety created under cultivation for anything- not just fruits. It's just that we haven't been approaching the vegetable and ornamental cultivars in the same manner as the fruits. See Lists of cultivars on Wikipedia.Wikipedia for a fuller picture (the List of onion cultivars there isn't really a list of onion cultivars, but that's another story...). There are cultivars scattered through Category:Peppers, Category:Potatoes, Category:Tomatoes, Category:Brassicas, Category:Radishes, Category:Amaranths and goosefoots, Category:Alliums, Category:Fabeae tribe plants, and Category:Phaseolus beans, among others Chuck Entz (talk) 03:57, 6 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, there are flowers like Kimilsungia, afaik. — Ping me User:内存溢出的猫 plz!📝瞄？💬喵! 10:29, 27 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Requests for expanding nominations in [language] entries

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Latest comment: 2 months ago3 comments3 people in discussion

This is added to pages by the new {{nomstub}}} template. You would never guess it from the category or template names, but the idea is to get people to help out with pages that have been nonminated for WT:FWOTD- no explanation up front of what is meant by "expanding" (is something inflating or putting on weight?) or "nominations" One could come up with all kinds of silly explanations: you want an expanding nomination for a given entry, or you already have an expanding nomination, and you want to request something for it. There aren't enough nominations in the language, so you're requesting that the number of nominations should be expanded.

Instead, I think it would better to have something like "FWOTD nominees needing to be expanded", or "needing expansion". At any rate, we need to do something, since now have Category:Requests for expanding nominations in Urdu entries in CAT:E because the request template was created without any planning or groundwork for the category it would need. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:57, 28 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

My apologies for causing such urgency to the matter. I am by no means a template expert nor a wordsmith and so, any recommendations for better handling of categories and verbiage are welcome. In the mean time, feel free to remove the category from the template's source. Additionally, I'm willing to change the template's name and update its transclusions once we establish a better alternative. TranqyPoo [💬 | ✏️] 22:31, 30 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
I think this is a useful group of categories to have. Perhaps we can name it something like CAT:X entries nominated for FWOTD but not ready to be featured? — justin(r)leung { (t...) | c=› } 23:57, 18 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Request creation of Category:Manosphere

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Latest comment: 1 month ago5 comments5 people in discussion

Some manosphere slang is used throughout the manosphere and is not used by a singular branch of the manosphere. Examples include for example SMV (sexual market value) which isn't solely used by the seduction community but also by MGTOW. Also there's some lists of glossaries online (example) wherein listed terms more accurately fit into an umbrella label. Manosphere constitutes that umbrella label.~2026-37290-71 (talk) 19:47, 28 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support There's a decent amount of manosphere jargon. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:49, 28 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
How many attested examples of 'manosphere' jargon does enwikt have? DCDuring (talk) 20:26, 28 June 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support. MedK1 (talk) 15:07, 22 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support SinaSabet28 (talk) 01:46, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Integrate Klingon noun categories into the category tree

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Latest comment: 3 months ago2 comments1 person in discussion

Klingon has 3 noun classes: beings that understand language (suffix -pu'), body parts (suffix -Du'), and other nouns (suffix -mey). There are categories for these nouns but they are not properly integrated into the category tree.

Category:Klingon -pu' nouns
Category:Klingon -Du' nouns
Category:Klingon -mey nouns

These could go under either Category:Klingon nouns by inflection type or Category:Klingon nouns by gender. Netizen3102 (talk) 23:19, 30 June 2026 (UTC)Reply

They should go under Category:Klingon nouns by inflection type as Klingon does not have a true gender system. Netizen3102 (talk) 03:20, 9 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

July 2026

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Category:Valleys

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Latest comment: 3 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Category:en:Valleys says it is only for specific named valleys, but we have enough terms to also populate a category full of terms for types of valley: barranca, bottom, box canyon, bunny, cajon, cañada, canyon, chasm, chine, cleft, clough (cleugh, cleuch), clove, cluse, combe, coulee, couloir, cove, crack, crevasse, dale, defile, dell, dene / den, dingle, draft, droke, flume, gap, gill, glen, gorge, goulotte, goyle, grough / gruff, gulch, gully, hollow, kloof, notch, nullah, pongo, puerta, quebrada, ravine, shutin, shutup, slade, strath, trench, vale, valley, etc. This is another situation where (as I have suggested before) naming "types of X" and "named Xs" categories differently would prevent ambiguity, but failing that, anyone have suggestions for what to call this second "valleys" category? - -sche (discuss) 00:49, 10 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Cassava

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Latest comment: 2 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The cassava is as important to South American cultures as corn is to Central America and there are lots of related terms across languages. My suggestion is to give it the same three cat treatment of corn (Category:Cassava (crop), Category:Cassava (food) and Category:Cassava (plant); see subcats of Category:Grains), or at least a Category:Cassava under Category:Spurges.

For Portuguese, for example, it would include terms like mandioca, macaxeira, aipim, tapioca, maniçoba, tucupi and farofa. Just the Wikipedia category for cassava-based dishes has over 60 pages. Old Tupi has a whole thesaurus page and other Tupi-Guarani languages have as many words. Trooper57 (talk) 01:02, 13 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Fix categories recursively categorized under themselves

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Latest comment: 2 months ago12 comments6 people in discussion

While writing a script to automatically create a Wiktionary category tree, I found a few categories that are indirectly categorized under themselves:

(There are also some loops using hidden categories but I don't think that matters.)

I don't believe this kind of loop structure is intentional, right? I think this should be fixed (i.e. in each case one category should be the definitive parent of the other category.) Virchau13 (talk) 11:52, 15 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Our category system need not be a hierarchy. The user benefits of having the supercategory appear in same place as the subcategories (reminding a user of other places to look; avoiding paging down or looking in a less-accustomed location) seems sufficient to encourage this, not forbid it. DCDuring (talk) 12:09, 15 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
Generally, category loops are not advisable and these in particular are not helpful for navigation. How is anyone helped by that last Tagalog suffix one? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:41, 15 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
Generally? Under whose advice? What specifically is the problem? DCDuring (talk) 22:36, 15 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
Whose advice? Graph theory. See, e.g. w:en:WP:CATLOOP. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:51, 15 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
What positive contribution has graph theory made to our use of categories? Actually, what bearing does it have on language? DCDuring (talk) 00:33, 16 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
How about I'll answer your questions if you answer mine first. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:00, 16 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
I agree with @Koavf. — Sgconlaw (talk) 17:23, 15 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
So do I. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:33, 15 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
In the absence of a 'See also' link between the two related Tagalog suffixes, some contributor looked at the accessible means of linking the two and added the categories. This is either a good remedy for a deficiency or an indication of something lacking in the default category "automation" system. What is the better remedy for what the category system lacks? DCDuring (talk) 22:36, 15 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
The Japanese and Tagalog ones seem like something that would be better handled by cross-linking the categories within their category descriptions, rather than by cross-nesting them. The mythology-paganism categories' overlap is probably because the concepts themselves are broad and overlap; compare Wiktionary:Category and label treatment requests#Category:Occult, Category:Supernatural, Category:Paranormal and Category:Parapsychology (I'm not opposed to sorting them out). - -sche (discuss) 03:25, 16 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
Probably so.
  1. Then the remedy for the problem initially stated is obvious: add a 'See also' link in each case.
  2. To reduce recurrence make access to the category descriptions more obvious/easy to newish contributors.
I'm sure that many categories would benefit from policing of membership. DCDuring (talk) 14:37, 16 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

error leading to question

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Latest comment: 2 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I was adding a sense to appendix:Láadan/aril and happened to use a new word as a header, so I got a redlinked category category:Láadan exclamations which I {{autocat}}ted (now deleted since 'interjection' is the correct name). But the module seems to want some specifying of the language's parts of speech in Lua presumably, and so the first question I confront is how to ostensively determine a language's parts of speech. this web dictionary has 'first declension', 'second declension', 'marker', 'affix', 'evidence morpheme', 'speech act morpheme', 'intransitive verb', 'transitive verb', and 'noun' as entry "classifications", plus 'core word' which isn't a part of speech as it just means it would make a shortlist of words important to constructing basic utterances. Adjectives are stative verbs, and much meaning is conveyed by the affixes which mark case. — Arlo Barnes (talk) 02:43, 17 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Add subcategory/label for rhythm games

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Latest comment: 2 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

This would be a relatively small category, comprising (as far as I'm aware) note, chart, full combo (abbr. FC), and all perfect (abbr. AP).

Some other terms do have specialized meanings within rhythm games (e.g. pattern, sightread) but such meanings fall within those words' general definitions. Others, such as names of patterns (e.g. trill, ladder, staircase) are far too game-specific to be included in a dictionary. SuperminerJG (talk) 03:37, 27 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support -- See also Chinese terms:
  • 舞萌地插 (Wǔméng-Dìchā)
  • 鳥／鸟 (niǎo, “SSS”), which is an orthographic borrowing from Japanese トリプルエス (triple S).
—— Ping me User:内存溢出的猫 plz!📝瞄？💬喵! 10:23, 27 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Greek names for the Virgin Mary

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Latest comment: 2 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Members:

Β
Βαγγελίστρα
Δ
Δέσποινα
Θ
Θεογεννήτωρ (el)
Θεοκυήτωρ (el)
Θεομήτωρ (el)
Θεοτόκος
Μ
Μεγαλόχαρη
Π
Παναγία
Πανάχραντος

This should be a subcat of {{C|el|Christianity}} and Category:Greek names.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:55, 27 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Support/expand. There are a lot of Marian titles and words in Mariology broadly that deserve their own category. I propose create Category:Mariology with Marian titles and names as a subcat. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:30, 31 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Tanglish

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Latest comment: 1 month ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Should it be added as a label to Module:labels/data/lang/en? I saw it unlinked in water. The wikipedia article exists. Aloysius Jr (talk) 13:21, 27 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Not needed; it's been dealt with. Aloysius Jr (talk) 12:20, 19 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
N Not done; closed by OP. Benwing2 (talk) 08:04, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Disasters

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Latest comment: 2 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I think the name itself should be straitforward enough. —— Ping me User:内存溢出的猫 plz!📝瞄？💬喵! 14:41, 27 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Taboo labels

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Latest comment: 2 months ago5 comments3 people in discussion

I have recently taken on editing Tundra Nenets again, and a major component of the language is the taboo culture - certain terms should not be uttered except in particular set situations, and instead avoidance terms should be used.

Some examples of this can be seen in вӑрк (wărk°) and derivates. Now, we currently only have a label for the avoidance terms (cf. явэко (yaweko)), but it does not categorise the terms in any way. We lack a label for taboo terms altogether.

As such, I propose adding a label {{lb|LANG|taboo}} linking to taboo and categorising the sense in question to "CAT:LANG terms with taboo senses", and to make {{lb|LANG|avoidance}} categorise terms to the category "CAT:LANG euphemisms". The latter I'm still on the fence about, whether to categorise avoidance terms into euphemisms, or to create a separate category.

What do we think? @Catonif with whom I have discussed this in detail on the Discord server. Thadh (talk) 21:05, 31 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support Words not to be spoken are a definite subset of language that is closely related to things like category:Euphemisms by language, category:Minced oaths by language, and category:Swear words by language but distinct. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:27, 31 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
I like the idea of properly documenting the phenomenon with a label. Rather than linking to our entry for taboo, I would propose we draft up something for the AP:Glossary, to avoid the proliferation of the label in various words which although non-specialist speech could easily call taboo, they may best be treated as vulgar or offensive in more scientific lexicography. For example, it was pointed out that the taboo label is already present on words such as пизда#Russian, and hoping that assuming that the term in this language I don't speak works the same as its equivalent in my native language is a fair assumption, I would say this does not meet the criteria I have in mind for this label. To me the taboo phenomenon, within linguistics at least, suggests that the mere uttering of the term will have some consequence linked to superstition, which I am to understand is the case with the flesh-eating wildlife in Tundra Nenets. In my experience, if I had to make an example of the phenomenon in Italian, I would mention blasphemies against God and the Holy Family, which aside from being a secure ticket to Hell (Matthew 12:31-32) in theory could also amount to a 51 to 309 € in fine (Codice Penale, Art. 724), meanwhile, all the crude reproductive and excretory terminology, as distasteful as it may get, won't allegedly put you in life-threatening consequences, be it by God or by a bear. In short, I support the label, but let's explicitly narrow it down to superstition. Catonif (talk) 21:54, 31 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
I agree. Not sure what to do with the Russian terms though, maybe some kind of "extremely offensive" or even "censored"? Personally, being fluent in English and Dutch I can say with certainty these languages contain no words similar in gravity/cultural significance as the Russian terms in question are (or, to be precise, were some fifty years ago). Thadh (talk) 22:06, 31 July 2026 (UTC)Reply
Ah my comment was based on the assumption that the Russian term would work as it does in western Europe. Given your description of it, it may be an edge case and not a good example for what I was trying to convey. Nevertheless, the overall point should still stand. Catonif (talk) 22:13, 31 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

August 2026

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Category:fa:Compass points

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Latest comment: 2 months ago2 comments1 person in discussion

apâxtar is missing Ronaldo sewie (talk) 11:21, 3 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

obviously the list didnt include this term because there wasnt an entry for it in the first place.
secondly, the diagram display shows only the "native" terms derived from old persian but not the arabic loans which are also used.
i dont know if this is the right place to make a request. there's simply no way for me to edit the list (even if i had made the entry) and the way it is displayed. Ronaldo sewie (talk) 11:41, 3 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Split childish and children's speech

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Latest comment: 1 month ago21 comments11 people in discussion

I propose we add a second label children's speech to denote "speech used by children", and that childish be used to denote "speech directed at/used to imitate children", or something similar. Vininn126 (talk) 09:42, 4 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support. I very much like the distinction. TranqyPoo [💬 | ✏️] 10:07, 4 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support. I opened a talk page topic three months ago requesting this exact change, but I realize I should have posted it here instead. One suggestion: instead of childish, consider using baby talk and/or child-directed speech, these are the more common and recognized terms. lankdadank (chat) 12:10, 4 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support — Fenakhay (حيطي · مساهماتي) 12:30, 4 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Question Wouldn't it make more sense to combined "speech used by children" with "speech used to imitate children" rather than "speech directed at children"? But, to the general idea of increasing the specificity of our labels, I support it. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 00:18, 5 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Possibly, I'm also open to a different name as suggested above. Vininn126 (talk) 08:32, 5 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Oppose i dont really see a difference, to be honest. every word that fits in childish could also be children's speech, making it a sub-category at best, rather than a sister category. but i think also almost all children's speech would be childish since adults sometimes playfully imitate their own childhood speech or someone else's. i expect this proposal to pass but it seems redundant to me. —Soap— 01:11, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
The distinction is actually well-established. For example, this article on baby talk in the Maghreb defines baby talk (or child-directed speech) as "a special speech register used by adults when addressing babies." The author then states that it "is to be distinguished from infant speech – the language that babies speak." Though they acknowledge overlap (e.g., adults may imitate infant speech as a form of baby talk), the two are conceptually distinct. lankdadank (chat) 01:38, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Thanks .... a distinction between the two may be more relevant in other languages. I hadnt thought of that. I maintain my position for English though. We could split them in some languages and retain just childish for English. —Soap— 02:06, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
You think that all words used BY children are also used TOWARD them? Vininn126 (talk) 07:43, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
i clearly said "almost all", up above:
almost all children's speech would be childish since adults sometimes playfully imitate their own childhood speech or someone else's
at best, you carelessly misread me. yet you phrase your response like i'm the one who has to explain himself. that's all i have to say. —Soap— 11:54, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
perhaps I did misread and wanted to clarify and make sure I understood your point? Don't forget to assume good faith.
That unnecessary remark out of the way, I disagree with this notion, but I also assume this comment is unnecessary as I assume you're unlikely to change your mind. Vininn126 (talk) 12:04, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
If we are to have two separate categories, I'd like to see some examples of terms which are in one or the other category and not always in both categories. — Sgconlaw (talk) 07:58, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Sgconlaw For terms used primarily towards children I would include big-girl pants, indoor voice, and inside thought (which we currently lack). Terms primarily used by children in my mind include are we there yet, cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater, and fartface. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 21:20, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'm not yet totally convinced that a distinction is meaningful in e.g. English, but I'm willing to believe that a distinction exists in some languages, but the comments above suggest that the distinction is "speech directed at children" vs "speech used by (or like that used by) children"; "speech used to imitate children" seems much closer to (when not identical with) "speech used by children", so I am inclined to agree with The Editor's Apprentice and Soap re how things should be grouped. Notably, "imitations of speech used by children" are often not "speech directed at children", they may be directed at other adults to convey childishness (childlike-ness, silliness, etc), e.g. an adult saying to other adults that their cat wants uppies (the cat is, as I understand it, imagined to be childlike, and it is imagined that the cat might use that word or conceptualize the act similarly to how a child does, making the child's word apt). So, if "children's speech" and "speech directed by adults at children" are to be split, then "adults' imitations of children's speech" seems like it might go better with "children's speech"...? I don't think there exists the kind of inaccurate caricature of children's speech that would need to be distinguished from actual children's speech that exists for e.g. (as discussed elsewhere) AAVE vs racist caricatures of Black speech. (If there do exist "adult imitations of children's speech" that are truly never used by children and need to be distinguished from "children's [own] speech", then we might need three categories...?)
To help readers and new users understand the distinction upon seeing the labels, I agree that if we do make a distinction, we should probably retire the ambiguous "childish" label and make the new labels clearly convey their different scopes, like "child-like speech" (or "children's speech"?) vs "[speech/language] directed at children". - -sche (discuss) 23:19, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Agreed. If I've understood correctly, this is the setup you're suggesting:
Label 1 = speech directed by adults at children
Label 2 = children's speech + adults' imitations of children's speech
For Label 1, I previously suggested baby talk and/or the clearer child-directed speech, these are the standard terms in the literature as far as I can tell.
For Label 2, children's speech seems fine to me for now, but I'm open to other suggestions. lankdadank (chat) 23:28, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
I could get behind this. Vininn126 (talk) 07:07, 12 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support per -sche. Juwan 🕊️🌈 10:09, 15 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'm a bit confused by the distinction as well. Let me put it practically: in Russian and Finnic languages, there are many terms used to denote concepts that have let's say "common register" terms, and then there are synonyms that are either used by little children, used by parents when talking to children, used by parents when talking about children in an affectionate way, or used by adults to imitate children. Examples of this could be Ingrian popo, pisju, tutu; also things like Russian дядя (djadja) meaning "(unfamiliar) man" (a sense we seem to lack currently). What would I have to label these kinds of terms? Thadh (talk) 11:05, 15 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
I suspect the proposed new labels should only be enabled for certain languages. I think it's possible to enable labels on a per-language basis, or at least to have them display the same as the existing "childish" label for languages that don't make the distinction, while displaying differently for languages that are claimed above to need the distinction. That way we don't end up with people trying to force the distinction into languages that don't make it, like the Swedish editor who was confused about how to tell when to mark something as an "orthographic borrowing" vs. various other kinds of borrowing (answer: the distinction isn't meaningful in Swedish when talking about e.g. one borrowing from Norwegian vs another, the label is not meant for Swedish to describe any class of borrowings, it is meant for cuneiform or CJK), or the editor who categorized English bestie as "women's speech". Because any infrastructure we add for one language, noobs [and sometimes veterans] will try to force all languages into unless the new infrastructure is explicitly language-specific... - -sche (discuss) 04:55, 16 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Oppose for English,  Abstain for languages I'm unfamiliar with that might need it. MedK1 (talk) 15:06, 22 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Add subcategory/label for randomizers

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Latest comment: 2 months ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Small, but noteworthy, in the same vein as the existing speedrunning category/label; check, BK, multiworld, plandomizer, to name a few uses. NovaeSys (talk) 17:25, 4 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:en:Colors

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Latest comment: 1 month ago9 comments4 people in discussion

I would like to propose a label for colors. At least I think so. That'd mean you could use {{lb}} to mark a specific definition line and link to color right? Like how Category:en:Horse colors works now. HootenannyHoller (talk) 20:54, 7 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

In case it wasn't obvious, this would be for the current residents of Category:en:Colors, e.g. red, sea green, toenail yellow, etc. HootenannyHoller (talk) 20:56, 7 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Oppose I don't think this is good use of a label. Labels are generally for indicating terms used within specific fields of knowledge or practice. — Sgconlaw (talk) 08:00, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Agree,  Oppose; this is what categories are for, not what labels are for, although some entries and some labels have long muddied the distinction. It has been suggested in the past that we should perhaps have two different label systems, and make them display differently, e.g. (round parentheses and the absence of coloration) vs [square brackets and the presence of coloration], using one kind of label for "usage restrictions" (if a term is restricted to a particular dialect, national variety, the jargon of a particular field, etc) and the other for "topic" (if a term is not restricted in any way, but it is a body part, or is a colour, etc). - -sche (discuss) 23:27, 11 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
@-sche: we already have a categorization system, so I don’t think another labelling system is really required. — Sgconlaw (talk) 09:19, 12 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Oh, I'm not entirely convinced it's needed, either, but this is hardly the first time someone has requested or made a label for a topic, or misused existing usage-restriction labels to indicate mere topicality — there are even now labels that are used to indicate mere topicality, like "anatomy": people use the word knee outside of anatomy class, all the "(anatomy)" label is doing is indicating that the knee is part of the anatomy, which isn't even what categories are for, let alone labels, it's what the definition is for, but nonetheless there "(anatomy)" is as a label — so I mention the idea in case anyone wants to (probably in the BP) try to make the case that actually we should systematically use labels for topics: this would be a way to do that while keeping it clear which labels mean what. - -sche (discuss) 16:58, 12 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
at least with colors there are some entries like raven#Adjective, which is currently given a label (chiefly of hair) which doesnt categorize anything, which means the category template is just hanging loose at the end of the entry rather than tied to a specific sense. that bothers me a little. however, there are many other free-floating categories like that, indeed even on that one entry, so that's a reform that would perhaps be better done all at once rather than piece by piece. for now i think the status quo is probably best. —Soap— 21:10, 13 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Ironically there is a label for Category:en:Hair colors, which doesn't seem like a term "used within specific fields of knowledge or practice". I guess the specific field is hairstylists? But then designers and artists use color names similarly. I don't see why hair colors counts but colors in general don't. HootenannyHoller (talk) 22:26, 13 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
@HootenannyHoller, -sche, Soap: on thinking about the issue a bit more, one downside of the current category system is that topic categories are mixed with maintenance categories at the bottom of an entry. Perhaps {{topics}} could be updated to display topic categories more prominently as a row of tablet-shaped boxes at the end of an entry. I don't think these little boxes need to be in an obtrusive colour—the standard colour of our column headings would be sufficient. (@HootenannyHoller: if there is a label for "Hair color", I think this is wrong too.) — Sgconlaw (talk) 00:04, 14 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Sign languages -> Category:Names of sign languages, so that Category:All sign languages to Category:Sign languages

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Latest comment: 1 month ago6 comments5 people in discussion

The pseudo-family sgn is irregularly stored under CAT:All sign languages instead of CAT:Sign languages because the latter already exists as a topic category for names of sign languages in various languages. I suggest fixing this by renaming CAT:Sign languages -> CAT:Names of sign languages (or maybe CAT:Names for sign languages?). We don't currently have any topic categories called "Names of foo" but we have several "Types of foo" as well as Category:Terms for fingers, so there is precedent for this sort of naming. @-sche, @Ioaxxere and I have had a long-term ongoing plan for cleaning up the naming of topic categories by making the category names of name, type and related-to categories explicitly indicate which class of topic category they are e.g. Category:Drums (types) or Category:Types of drums vs. just Category:Drums, which is ambiguous as to whether it refers to a name, type or related-to category. We had vaguely settled on using the parenthesized format "Foo (CLASS)" rather "CLASSES of/for foo" so that autocomplete would still work with the topic, but currently we have more of the "CLASSES of/for foo" type of names, and if/when we make this switch, we will have to rename a ton of categories anyway. Benwing2 (talk) 06:10, 18 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support. - -sche (discuss) 06:15, 18 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Strong support. Juwan 🕊️🌈 11:38, 18 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
OK I am halfway through this rename. I renamed Category:Sign languages -> Category:Names of sign languages and will do the second part tomorrow. I would like to propose some parallel renames:
Benwing2 (talk) 07:06, 24 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support MedK1 (talk) 15:36, 26 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 18:14, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Managing transclusion

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Latest comment: 1 month ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Right now, any number of pages can use {{tcl}} without any indication visible in the transcluded entry. That makes it very easy for someone to unknowingly break other pages. I would like to suggest tracking categories like "pages transcluding [pagename]", with some method for seeing them in the transcluded entry. There are similar issues with {{etymon}}, but that looks like it would be harder to address.

Transclusion can be very useful, but this issue needs to be dealt with. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:29, 18 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

This is a good idea. I will try to add this soon. I'm dealing with a family emergency right now so it may be a bit delayed. Benwing2 (talk) 23:09, 18 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Early Medieval Latin in Latin family tree

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Latest comment: 1 month ago4 comments2 people in discussion

I think there is a mistake in Latin's family tree: CAT:Latin language

Currently "Medieval Latin" derives from "Late Latin", and then splits into "Early Medieval Latin" and "Renaissance Latin"→"New Latin"→"Contemporary Latin"

Classical Latin la-cla
→Late Latin la-lat
→Medieval Latin la-med
→Early Medieval Latin la-eme
→Renaissance Latin la-ren
→New Latin la-new

Shouldn't "Early Medieval Latin" rather be an ancestor of "Medieval Latin", descendant of "Late Latin"?

Classical Latin la-cla
→Late Latin la-lat
→Early Medieval Latin la-eme
→Medieval Latin la-med
→Renaissance Latin la-ren
→New Latin la-new

o/ Emanuele6 (talk 06:08, 19 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think the reason for this set up is because "Medieval Latin" is taken to represent the entire period from Early Medieval (600-900 AD) through Renaissance Latin (1300-1500 AD or something). I think this is consistent with how the terms are categorized in practice but I'm not completely sure. Pinging @Nicodene and @Theknightwho. Benwing2 (talk) 17:24, 19 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, I see, I missed that. Shouldn't they really be split since CAT:Early Medieval Latin seems to say that Romance languages can only inherit words from up to Early Medieval Latin, though?
It seems that categories like CAT:Portuguese terms inherited from Medieval Latin vs CAT:Portuguese terms inherited from Early Medieval Latin should not exist: if a Medieval Latin term really is inherited in Portuguese, it would have to be an Early Medieval Latin term, no? Emanuele6 (talk 06:48, 20 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Completely agree. The whole point of adding Early Medieval Latin was to allow terms to be inherited from it into Romance languages while disallowing inheritance from Medieval Latin proper. If @Nicodene supports, we can look into what is needed to make this switch. Benwing2 (talk) 18:35, 20 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Category redirects

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Latest comment: 1 month ago5 comments2 people in discussion

IMO we should not have these indefinitely; they cause things like Hotcat (or evaluations of the blueness of a link, like I used to generate this) to falter. IMO we should periodically delete anything in this category. I just found one from a decade ago (my own fault, as it happens): [11]. - -sche (discuss) 23:05, 19 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

I agree; we should probably just clean out all the ones that are there currently. Benwing2 (talk) 18:30, 20 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
OK, I and others have cleaned out several hundred of the most obviously unneeded ones, leaving about 150. A few of these plausibly should be kept (as redirects) to help people coming here from other projects, namely things like Category:User bs (I would not keep such things for just any and every tiny ISO-coded lect we merge, but Serbo-Croatian is particularly big and feisty). Some currently have entries, and so must remain until emptied. At least one, CAT:E (which is in a subcategory), seems valid. Probably another hundred could be culled, but at least the ones that I have the most immediate objection to ("CAT:Foo lemmas", which distort(ed) my checking for whether a language has entries) and other most obviously unneeded ones have been removed now. - -sche (discuss) 19:25, 30 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Thank you very much. At one point I deleted all the empty categories you marked for deletion, and hopefully any ones later marked got also deleted. I agree that more can be removed, e.g. Chinese four-character idioms derived from ..., keeping only Category:Chinese four-character idioms itself, like how you deleted all the Burma categories except Category:Burma itself. The Serbo-Croatian-related category redirects you left should probably stay so that we don't get endless questions about "why doesn't Wiktionary support Serbian (or Croatian, Bosnian, etc.)"? Benwing2 (talk) 23:23, 30 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
(Aha, thank you for deleting those!) I agree about removing the "four-character" (sub)categories. - -sche (discuss) 23:42, 30 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Rural label

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Latest comment: 1 month ago8 comments6 people in discussion

Currently {{lb|en|rural}} turns into (rustic), I think "rural" is a more common term than "rustic" for describing that, so we should at least be able to use it. It would look like this: (rural). It should either direct to the rural entry or maybe to a new entry in the glossary next to rustic. I also don't know why {{lb|en|mostly}} and {{lb|en|mainly}} turn into (chiefly) (collinsdictionary.com and dictionary.cambridge.org use mainly), but that should probably be talked about in another discussion. Rcnn (talk) 01:59, 20 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Rcnn You can always force the text of an alias using !, in case you don't know {{lb|en|!mainly|!rural}} (mainly rural).
Anyway, I would only use it to force the participial/adjectival form for things like {{lb|en|sometimes|!prescribed}} or {{lb|en|!medical}} over (sometimes prescriptive) (medicine) when necessary; it does not make much sense to me for things like "!mainly" or "!rural" since they are being converted to "chiefly" and "rustic" because they are considered synonymous in the context of Wiktionary labels.
I comment that also to me "rural" seems like a better default display label compared to "rustic", I would  Support changing it. Emanuele6 (talk 07:29, 20 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Thank you I didn't know about the ! thing Rcnn (talk) 07:35, 20 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
I  Support changing to rural. The word rustic sounds old-fashioned and less neutral than rural; it's something I associate more with art movements than with linguistic terms. Benwing2 (talk) 18:33, 20 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Abstain on rustic vs rural,  Oppose chiefly -> mainly/mostly. MedK1 (talk) 15:02, 22 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Maybe someone can demonstrate that a "rural" and/or "rustic" label makes sense for some languages, but looking at the 18 entries in Category:English rustic terms, I am unsure whether it makes sense at all. We already have "dialectal" and (ill-distinguished therefrom) "regional", and "folk speech" (though that last one is more used in {{a}} and {{q}} than {{lb}}). I don't get the impression that fierce, for example, is limited to rural speech (though perhaps the reason I've heard it occasionally from city-dwellers is that they're speaking in contexts where they're slightly playing up their Irishness). Looking at the cites, I don't see that blackthorn winter (where I apparently added the label myself, probably based on some other dictionary) is somehow more rural than blackberry winter, either. (Anyway, i agree with apparently everyone else about using "chiefly" in at least most cases.) - -sche (discuss) 17:18, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
I am inclined to agree we should eliminate the rural/rustic label entirely. The label attached to a term like sextry (= sacristy) reminds me of varmint (= vermin etc.); these are dialectal terms that are only "rustic" as an artifact of the fact that dialectal speech is best preserved (at least in English and probably in most languages) in rural areas. Benwing2 (talk) 19:29, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
It should not be removed wholesale, probably just renamed and slightly redefined. The equivalent category exists in at least Finnish (kans. = kansanomainen/kansankieli); these are terms mainly found in rural or substandard varieties of the language. — SURJECTION / T / C / L / 18:29, 30 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:en:Incel community

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Latest comment: 1 month ago2 comments2 people in discussion

The standard term for the incel community is the word "incelosphere". I propose that the name of the category "incel community" is changed to "incelosphere". It will also help many adjacent communities that are not necessarily self-defining as incels, but nonetheless occupy the same niches within the manosphere online. Such uncategorized entries can finally have an category it can be classified in. ~2026-45789-25 (talk) 16:55, 20 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

This term is marked as a neologism and I've in fact never heard of it. I'd not favor a category name using a neologism; we need to wait until the term is more accepted. Benwing2 (talk) 18:29, 20 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Japanese terms with usage examples → Japanese terms with usage examples or quotations

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Latest comment: 1 month ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Japanese employs the definitely not well-thought-out practice of using a {{quote-*|ja|...}} template with no text followed by {{ja-usex}} templates (also used for regular usage examples) with the text and translation for its quotations, rather than a dedicated {{ja-quote}} template for the quotation's text and translation. (note that not even {{ja-usex|nocat=1}} is an option.) This template usage is documented, and prescribed in T:ja-usex.

This ends up categorising the majority of modern and contemporary Japanese terms with quotations in both CAT:Japanese terms with usage examples and CAT:Japanese terms with quotations, even if they don't have regular usage examples. Effectively not allowing one to find pages that have both quotations and other regular usage examples.

Special:Search/incategory:"Japanese terms with quotations" -incategory:"Japanese terms with usage examples" still contains a good amount of pages (1710 vs the 4562 total terms with quotations), those are things like:

  • Japanese by using a regular {{quote-av|ja|text=...}} template providing quotations without rōmaji transcriptions, which would not be the recommended way as far as I understand per {{ja-usex/documentation}};
  • Japanese ちび which does a better job providing a manual transliterations, still not using {{ja-usex}};
  • entries like Japanese 蘭 that quote ancient text using templates like {{RQ:Wamyō Ruijushō}} followed by {{lang|ja}} with the original text, providing not transliteration or translation;
  • or Japanese 鐸 using {{RQ:Shin'yaku Kegonkyō Ongi Shiki|passage=...|translation=...}} to cite the gloss from that source and provide an English translation/rewording. (Incidentally, shouldn't that template automatically use |brackets=1? quotations like that one are not currently bracketed, but should be)

All things considered, since this usage of {{ja-usex}} is prescribed in Japanese entries, I think the CAT:Japanese terms with usage examples category should be renamed to CAT:Japanese terms with usage examples or quotations to better reflect its peculiar usage in Japanese. o/ Emanuele6 (talk 07:40, 21 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'd kind of rather fix Japanese quotations to not mix usex and quote templates, rather than hacking around what we acknowledge is a bad implementation. Benwing2 (talk) 07:49, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Video game categories

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Latest comment: 1 month ago5 comments2 people in discussion

I'm proposing the creation of two new topical video game-related categories:

Grumpy Moogle (talk) 07:42, 25 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Hmmmm. Generally if a category can support 10 terms it should be created, but in this case I question whether many of these terms actually pass WT:CFI. Benwing2 (talk) 15:57, 26 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Everything has quotes except the Zelda title acronyms and rupee but that's fixable. Grumpy Moogle (talk) 05:13, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Yes and no. Yes, they have quotes but they're mostly from non-durable sources like Reddit, which are often not accepted per WT:CFI. Benwing2 (talk) 05:15, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
In 2026, a lot of new and niche language can't be attested strictly from physical print media, kupo. There's a precedent for the proposed categories in Category:Doctor Who, Category:Pokémon, Category:Star Trek, etc. It makes sense to have a "container" category for a media franchise when there's enough entries related to it. I find such categories helpful as both an editor and a reader of this site. Grumpy Moogle (talk) 19:48, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:en:French

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Latest comment: 1 month ago3 comments3 people in discussion

I suggest adding an {{auto cat}} entry for French for the following entries:

Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 06:39, 26 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Most of these are more like terms that should be listed as Derived terms of French or France. Some of them could go in a potential Category:en:French (maybe?) but IMO we don't need a topic cat containing a grab bag of terms with the word "French" in them. Benwing2 (talk) 15:52, 26 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support - It would be handy to have a topical category for terms related to the French language. Grumpy Moogle (talk) 20:10, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
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Latest comment: 1 month ago14 comments3 people in discussion

User:Benwing2 once said that all label and category changes must be notified here.

User:Catonif applied, mixing it in with other changes, a change that had previously already been reverted to change the existing Italian "Romanesco" label for the w:Romanesco dialect to a geographic label for the city of w:Rome.

It was claimed that this change received support in WT:Beer parlour/2026/May#Use_toponyms_instead_of_adjectives_in_Italian_labels, but to me that does not seem to have been discussed at all.

The related category, CAT:Romanesco Italian, was moved to CAT:Roman Italian (leaving a redirect, which does not seem correct), and its meaning has been completely changed from a category meant to include only Romanesco dialect terms to a category meant to include anything related to Rome, be it a regional term or a Romanesco dialect term. (and this is, supposedly, better)

Further, it was claimed that, before this one-year-old change Special:Diff/84921903 that made the "Rome" and "Roman" label normalise to "Romanesco", the CAT:Romanesco Italian category was never only meant for the Romanesco dialect in spite of its name and the fact it was linking the Wikipedia page w:Romanesco dialect. I don't see how that holds up since one can clearly see that it was defined that way in the code.

Anyway, User:Catonif simply did this regardless of others' opinion and disregarding the suggestion to just use two separate labels made multiple times, so I guess this is just a notification of the label and category change that was made and we should accept.

Can we at least discuss the deletion of the CAT:Romanesco Italian redirect, name of the now defunct category, since even Catonif rightfully insists that word should only be used to refer to the dialect? Emanuele6 (talk 09:50, 26 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

I do understand where Catonif is coming from (trying to standardize terminology) but if that has the side-effect of changing the significance of the category, I agree that it should have been discussed first. Benwing2 (talk) 15:55, 26 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Ah, and I forgot to mention the other point made, that the label was not actually used as strictly for Romanesco.
The example given was the entry caciarone, with the quintessentially Catonifian label usage {{lb|Rome|regional}}.
Labels are but text on the page, the semantic nuances that Wiktionary gives to labels, if one perceives them as useless, should be allowed to be ignored: using # {{lb|it|archaic}} (even though # {{tlb|it|archaic}} is also an option) over {{tlb|it|archaic}} is just a matter of personal editing style preference that should not be imposed on everyone, same for # {{lb|it|archaic}} {{alt of|it|}} over {{archaic form of|it|}}; using {{lb|it|archaic}} over {{lb|it|archaic form}}? Who cares!
{{tlb|LANG|archaic}}, {{lb|LANG|archaic}}, {{lb/tlb|LANG|archaic form}}/{{archaic form of|LANG|}} being related to three entirely separate categories for all languages; e.g. CAT:Italian archaic terms, CAT:Italian terms with archaic senses, CAT:Italian archaic forms? I am sure a lot of people think that is stupid. Do we even know who came up with that? There is not even a point in discussing it, one should be able to just ignore the difference and not even care about it.
Anyway, whatever change Catonif made to this category and label was already agreed upon in a discussion with 3-ZERO support, as it was stated.
This discussion notifies WT:CLTR of the change, and should discuss whether the CAT:Romanesco Italian redirect to the new CAT:Roman Italian category should be delete. I think it quite clearly should be, so, given that it exists as an invalid redirect and the suggestion I made to just use two separate labels was bad, I  Support deleting CAT:Romanesco Italian. Emanuele6 (talk 05:32, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Emanuele6 In short, we have a category that is called "Romanesco", but due to the label "Rome" categorising into it, it is actually more generally simply "Roman". If you'd like, I can revert the rename, but how else would you suggest we proceed? Catonif (talk) 21:29, 26 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Well, firstly, I am not sure why you are even once again asking me for suggestions on this matter, since you already disregarded them on multiple occasions. I don't see how they would even matter given that a discussion was already had and it resulted in unanimous 3-to-ZERO support for everything you did in your changes to MOD:labels/data/lang/it. Mine or the opinion of any other single person should definitely not overrule something decided with total consensus in a discussion.
Anyway, this is way too short because I cannot even tell what you are telling me. Are you proposing to revert the rename of what? The label? The category? Both? Everything? Something else?
Regardless of that, in this discussion, we discuss deleting the now existing CAT:Romanesco Italian redirect to the new CAT:Roman Italian category. I think CAT:Romanesco Italian quite clearly should be deleted as it exists, because the word "Romanesco" should only be used to refer to the "w:Romanesco dialect", not to anything relating to the city of w:Rome. Emanuele6 (talk 05:39, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Emanuele6 If you want to discuss having two separate categories, we can. I personally don't think that is feasible, because although the distinction is important to maintain in labels, the lines get blurry, e.g. annà is evidently dialectal, schicchera is evidently regional, and labels should distinguish the two, but I wouldn't know how to categorise micragna which is somewhere between the two. For categorisation purposes I believe the most realistic and current solution is treating them together.
If you just want the redirect deleted, sure thing, I will delete it in a week from now. Catonif (talk) 14:43, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
If you want to discuss having two separate categories You said you already discussed changing the category, even though @Benwing2 implied otherwise above, so you did not change it by your own initiative and discussed this fair and square getting full support from the people who actually have something resembling worth. Further, the existence of 38 entries in Special:Search/incategory:"Roman Italian" incategory:"Regional Italian" containing the exemplar caciarone due to your adding {{lb|it|Rome|regional}} to it, because you just wanted "Rome" to appear on the screen regardless of what the label was actually defined to mean, is clear proof that this is unfeasible.
This comment provided no clarifications. Anyway, if you really want to discuss this again for whatever reason, in spite of the fact that this was already discuss and got overwhelming support by all parties, I urge you once again to create a separate discussion because this discussion has a different stated purpose. However, my opinion would remain worthless on the matter.
On the actuzl topic of the discussion, I assume you support the deletion, but it was not stated.
Deleting by your own initiative the page is something I would not think you should be allowed to do, but you do frequently join discussions in RfVs declaring that you changed or will change the page a certain way, applying the change (sometimes not actually as described), immediately removing the {{rfv}} templates from page in the process, such as you did in anguria, Lisandro or dopo, so maybe you are just allowed to do that, or whatever. I would think after a decision is reached, a {{cltr|fail=1}} would be placed on the page and then deleted per the result of the discussion. Emanuele6 (talk 18:17, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
After all, users with properties such as yours bypass "removal-of-deletion-or-rfv-template" tagging, apparently. [12] Emanuele6 (talk 20:03, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Emanuele6 I took your opinion into consideration on the first discussion, I opened a new discussion for you to voice your concerns in and you willingly did not participate in it, I waited more than a month before putting the discussed change into practice, and only after I did you belittle its 3-0 support and finally, even now in this thread, I am still asking for your opinion on how to handle things, and I have clearly showed willingness to undo the change which you claim I enacted against consensus. Still, you treat me as some sort of tyrant, and categorically go against anything I say, even if I say the same things as you. Your opinioned is listened, but if you clutter it with all these rants it's hard to make out what you want. I removed the RFVs from anguria and dopo because that is not how RFV works: the very first line of WT:RFV clarifies This page is for disputing the existence of terms or senses. I won't delete this redirect myself, we'll tag it as you described and wait someone else to deal with it. Catonif (talk) 20:49, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
It should be clear to anyone that you did in fact discuss the matter of changing the meaning of the category already, and got overwhelming support for it in your discussion regarding the normalisation of the "Tuscan" display label to "Tuscany", etc., as you once again confirmed. So there is no point in arguing against it.
WT:RFV is used for {{rfv-sense}}, so it seems utterly ridiculous to me that an RFV discussing the sense # (regional) watermelon would not belong there, but you must be right, and there is no place to discuss such things. Emanuele6 (talk 21:34, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Again, RFV is about the existence of a sense. The discussion was about its label. Catonif (talk) 22:09, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
I will never dare to report something like this again. Emanuele6 (talk 22:12, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
You may do so in the WT:Tea room. Catonif (talk) 22:15, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
There is nothing making with a sense with the embedded label "(regional) watermelon" completely wrong, it is just a label. Even if the definition were {{archaic form of}} for something that is just {{alt of}} it would not be a {{rfv-sense}} matter.
Will WT:TR discussion get archived on the relevant page's or will no one even know about the fact that ever happened?
Should I also have used WT:TR over WT:RFV for Lisandro? Talk:Lisandro#RFV_discussion:_May_2026
There you even removed my {{rfe}} while not adding an etymology, and adding supposed cognates so dubiously for that etymology compared to the other one that they were removed. You also removed the {{rfv}} before anyone could discuss whether they were the same etymology or pronunciation, saying that those things did not matter to you.
And framed the RFV result as you citing the RFVed sense even though you completely changed its labels to find citations, and added three cites, of which only one was actually passable per WT:CFI. Special:Diff/90495408 Emanuele6 (talk 22:34, 27 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Geological periods

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Latest comment: 1 month ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Period is a specific rank in geologic time, but this category is currently a dump for everything from eons to ages. It's misleading.

I suggest either changing its name to something more broad (Wikipedia uses Units of geologic time) or splitting it, giving a separate category for each division. Trooper57 (talk) 20:36, 26 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

For the moment I'd suggest just renaming the category rather than splitting into each geological division (which might not support enough items per category and which IMO is likely to lead to incorrect categorization since a lot of people aren't clear on the distinctions, as can be seen by the current name). Benwing2 (talk) 21:06, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Renaming is the best option for the moment yeah. I think the category split would work better if we had a template akin to {{number box}} and {{chemical element box}} that autocategorizes. Trooper57 (talk) 23:44, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

"meta" vs "supplementary" templates?

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Latest comment: 1 month ago5 comments3 people in discussion

Is there a difference between "meta" and "supplementary" templates? I’m planning on categorising templates ending in style.css and am not sure which group they’d belong to. They both seem to be defined with the same purpose. I think they should probably be merged. The latter category has by language subcategories while the former doesn’t. Saighneánach (talk) 22:43, 28 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

it does not appear to be any meaningful difference between these. looking at the Wikidata item, the latter category is only used in Wiktionaries. Merge the "supplementary" category into metatemplates. Juwan 🕊️🌈 20:30, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Agreed. I would prefer supplementary here because meta has a more specific meaning in programming languages, and no one normally refers to helper functions (which these template are analogous to) as metafunctions. Benwing2 (talk) 20:55, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
noting though that the name "metatemplates" is common crosswiki. Juwan 🕊️🌈 22:26, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
Hmm. The problem is not only that wiki usage here is contrary to normal programming usage but that the definition of a "metatemplate" here is so broad that it could encompass nearly any template. The actual contents of both CAT:Metatemplates and Foo supplementary templates are a grab bag of random templates; my feeling now is we should delete both categories. Benwing2 (talk) 22:38, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

User categories

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Latest comment: 1 month ago10 comments3 people in discussion

proposing that the following categories be updated, based on the equivalent categories on Wikipedia:

these are quite unclear in name. plus, "user scripts" is already a term for something else.

additionally, I wish to bring Category:User groups into the category tree. Juwan 🕊️🌈 20:25, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Support; the current names are confusing and unclear. Grouping Category:User groups also seems to make sense. Benwing2 (talk) 20:57, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
 Support, agree that the current names are weird. - -sche (discuss) 18:53, 30 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
What about the subcats? Would you keep e.g. Category:User Python coder and Category:User sla or rename them? Benwing2 (talk) 21:51, 31 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
To the extent that we want to have it as a category, "User sla" seems like a fine name: it fits the pattern of "Users who know [language foo]" being categorized as "User [language code]"; likewise for e.g. "User Cyrl". I guess that's also the naming format that e.g. "User coders" and "User scripts" and "User Python coder" etc are mimicking, but since those are words rather than codes, I didn't even parse them that way until now! (When you come right down to it, "User fr", "User it" etc is itself an odd way to be naming categories, but it's conveniently short and too widespread and entrenched across too many wikis to change.) So I'd leave "User [language/family/script/etc code]" categories as-is, but suggest renaming "User Python coder" and other word ones to something like "Users who are Python coders" or "Users who know Python". - -sche (discuss) 22:28, 31 August 2026 (UTC)Reply
OK I made the changes to the top-level cats and also changed "User Python coder" etc. to "Users who know Python" etc. Benwing2 (talk) 05:08, 1 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Thanks!
@Juwan, Benwing: Belatedly, I notice that Wikipedia uses (in lowercase, like a language code) w:Category:User rust, w:Category:User python, w:Category:User python-1, and for consistency and recognizability as a code, even w:Category:User c specifically in lowercase (they have a category redirect at the uppercase form), and looking at the interwiki links it seems like various other Wikipedias do likewise. If we wanted to be consistent with Wikipedia, we could do that. (I'd still keep the top-level categories under Juwan's names, particularly in the case of "User scripts" which normally means javascripts etc written by users.) - -sche (discuss) 19:03, 1 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
thank you. though here not particularly convinced by the use of the lowercase lang names. Juwan 🕊️🌈 19:46, 1 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
There's a potential issue with using e.g. Category:User lua for knowledge of Lua, which is that lua is also a valid language code, for the Category:Luba-Kasai language. Granted, this is an obscure language, but we do have 116 lemmas in it, and I can easily see other such conflicts occurring (e.g. it's just a coincidence that there is no two-letter language code go to conflict with the Go programming language). Also, Category:User c in particular just looks wrong since the C programming language is always capitalized, and on top of this it's a pretty obscure name (I don't think most people would correctly guess that a Category:User c category is for knowledge of the programming language C as opposed to e.g. some user who is named c or some unknown grouping of users in categories a, b, c etc.). Benwing2 (talk) 20:35, 2 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Good point. (I wondered if Wikipedia did something smart like use "scribunto" to avoid the naming clash, but no, their Category:User lua says it's for the programming language, which will cause them problems at some point.) OK, let's stick with the "Users who know" (Python, etc) names. - -sche (discuss) 21:22, 2 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Create a category for looksmaxxing terms

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Latest comment: 21 days ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Previously, looksmaxxing terms were labelled under Category:English incel slang. However, looksmaxxing has recently gone mainstream such that it no longer makes sense to conflate looksmaxxing and incel terms. Thus, terms that don't have any relation to inceldom such as canthal tilt or mew should be separated into their own category to make our categories more focused. Pinging @Benwing who reverted my edit in diff.

Sources discussing looksmaxxing jargon include:

Ioaxxere (talk) 20:34, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

I don't know enough about this area to say whether a "looksmaxxing" category merits addition but it definitely needs a discussion. Benwing2 (talk) 21:03, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Done Done Ioaxxere (talk) 21:15, 19 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

As a general rule you should not take silence as consent. I have similarly cautioned Theknightwho about doing this. Unless there's an overwhelming need for a category, please wait in the future until someone responds. Benwing2 (talk) 22:47, 19 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:en:Colour and pattern morphs -> deleted

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Latest comment: 1 month ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Added in March 2025 without discussion (a bit before the creation of WT:CLTR) by @Inpacod2. This seems both too specific and too ill-defined, and only contains 3 entries in English (two of which are synonyms, conda and anaconda) and none in any other languages. It's ended up essentially a garbage category and I don't think it's necessary. Benwing2 (talk) 21:44, 29 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Categorise stylesheets

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Latest comment: 1 month ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I think that we should add [[Category:TemplateStyles stylesheets]] (cf. category:TemplateStyles pages). It would be a subcategory of a new category called [[Category:Stylesheets]] (I was going to suggest [[Category:Templates]] too but I don’t think all TemplateStyles are in the template namespace). This category would have the subcategories [[Category:TemplateStyles by language]] and [[Category:TemplateStyles by namespace]] itself. We already have the maintenance categories:

There’s roughly 100 stylesheet templates in special:Uncategorizedtemplates. The fact that these pages are poorly tracked results in cases like template:az-latin-conj/style.css which is no longer transcluded but never got deleted/nominated for deletion. I think it’ll be beneficial to track these pages and have by language subcategories so editors of a given language can see the style of current templates in one place.

I’m not sure of the best way to add the categories due to these pages not using the wikitext content model. The modules should be just a tweak to {{module cat}} but the other namespace might be trickier?

According to this intitle search there are roughly 1480 stylesheets across nine namespaces (20 of which are actually talk pages; most are in userspace; the only result outside of the 9 namespaces was .css in mainspace). Of these, only 172 pages across 5 namespaces (mainly module and template; only 1 wiktionary and mediawiki) use the characteristic content model of TemplateStyles (sanitized-css). I roughly summarised all the stylesheets below as I propose they be categorised:

Again that’s a rough summary. I’d imagine that this will be tweaked with community input. Maybe the TemplateStyles stylesheets shouldn’t be distinguished and all stylesheets should be categorised by just namespace (as well as "user stylesheets" for all user stylesheets regardless of namespace) and language? Saighneánach (talk) 20:50, 31 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Q codes -> Category:Radio slang Q codes or merge into Category:Translingual radio slang, and related issues

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Latest comment: 1 month ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The category Category:Q codes is exceptionally obscurely named. These are apparently codes used in radio slang (apparently specifically ham radio?). We already have Category:Translingual radio slang, which is a parent of Category:Q codes and contains the same codes (they are double-categorized), and 46 of the 51 entries in Category:Translingual radio slang are Q codes. Should we merge the two categories? In fact everything in Category:Translingual radio slang is a code, so I would suggest:

  1. Either merge Category:Q codes into Category:Translingual radio slang or rename it to Category:Amateur radio Q codes.
  2. Rename the POS category radio slang to amateur radio slang, since this is very different from CB radio slang. Better yet, get rid of radio slang entirely. There are only two subcategories, Category:Translingual radio slang with its 51 codes that could be renamed to Category:Amateur radio codes, and Category:English radio slang with only two entries that could easily be merged into Category:en:Amateur radio. (In any case, the two entries listed aren't really slang so much as jargon.)
  3. Create a CB radio slang POS category. We have no such category, and well-known CB radio terms like 10-4, 10-20, smokey, breaker, etc. are not consistently categorized.
  4. Create a category Category:Codes or similar as a holding category for Category:Currency codes, Category:ISO codes, Category:IATA airport codes, etc. Many of these are currently placed under Category:Translingual symbols, but symbols and codes aren't the same thing (witness the fact that we have both Category:Currency symbols and Category:Currency codes), and not all categories for codes are under Category:Translingual symbols (Category:Q codes and Category:Character codes are examples).

Benwing2 (talk) 21:00, 31 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Characters from folklore -> Category:Stock characters from folklore or Category:Archetypes from folklore

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Latest comment: 1 month ago1 comment1 person in discussion

If you start typing Category:Characters into the search box, it autocompletes to the following:

  1. Category:Characters by script
  2. Category:Characters from folklore
  3. Category:Characters without script

My brain starts singing one of these things is not like the others .... To avoid the polysemy, I'd suggest using stock character or archetype in place of character in the second category. Benwing2 (talk) 21:05, 31 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:en:Station codes -> Category:Rail station codes or the like

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Latest comment: 1 month ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Several issues here:

  1. This was manually created by User:Inqilābī as an English-specific topic category outside the category tree.
  2. The codes are not really English-specific but are Translingual, and it's not obvious to me there are language-specific equivalents (I don't see any other-language equivalent categories), hence they don't need to be in the topic hierarchy at all.
  3. Station codes is too ambiguous. (Bus stations? Way stations? Subway stations? ...)

I propose eliminating the language prefix and disambiguating as Category:Rail station codes or alternatively Category:Railway station codes ("railway station" is a Commonwealth-specific term but at least currently, all the codes appear to refer to stations in the UK, Australia, India or Hong Kong). Benwing2 (talk) 21:41, 31 August 2026 (UTC)Reply

September 2026

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Category:Wiktionary:Files -> deleted

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Latest comment: 1 month ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Seems duplicated by Special:ListFiles, which provides a lot more information on the files in question. Benwing2 (talk) 04:02, 1 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

merge Category:Wiktionary archives and Category:Inactive pages

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Latest comment: 3 days ago6 comments4 people in discussion

They seem to be used for the same thing? Benwing2 (talk) 04:08, 1 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Intuitively, I'd expect these categories to be distinguished in either of the following ways:
Nevertheless, I  support this merger since neither of these putative distinctions seems to be useful enough to worth maintaining, especially since others probably have their own idiosyncratic intuitions of what the distinction between the two categories seems to connote. "Inactive pages" is probably the better name for the merged category for consistency with {{inactive}}. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 06:10, 1 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
In retrospect, the incompletely-implemented distinction @-sche noticed does seem useful to maintain (and fully implement) if Category:Wiktionary archives is renamed for clarity ("Dedicated archived discussion pages"? "Pages for archived discussions"?) and made a subcategory of both Category:Archived discussions and Category:Inactive pages. The notion of instead breaking up archived discussion pages seems undesirable in that it both involves drudgework and destroys a interesting historical record of editorial practice. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 15:25, 7 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Upon seeing the names I guessed the distinction to be, and upon looking at the categories I find that the distinction does seem to partly be, that "archives" is for old 'archives' (Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup/archive, Wiktionary:Requests for verification/archive, Wiktionary:Translation requests/archive, Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Archives) similar to Wiktionary:Language treatment requests/Archives/2015-19, from the era when RFV, RFC etc were archived to central pages (or nowhere), the way WT:LTR is archived today. (Whereas, "inactive pages" aren't 'archives', just pages people stopped updating.)
Actually, it seems like a second type of thing that the "archives" category currently contains is the archive/timeline boxes that are displayed on our central discussion forums like the BP, ES, etc, which are inconsistently sometimes named "/archives" and sometimes "/timeline"; those boxes aren't inactive (when 2027 comes around we'll add it to them like we added 2026); maybe we should standardize their naming? And maybe we should put them in their own category.
A few pages seem incorrectly categorized. e.g. Wiktionary:Wiktionary Logo is not an archive in the way that Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup/archive is.
On one hand, we could keep Category:Wiktionary archives, remove incorrectly-categorized pages like Wiktionary:Wiktionary Logo, and add things like Wiktionary:Language treatment requests/Archives/2015-19 to it. On the other hand, we could try to empty Category:Wiktionary archives by dispersing the centrally-archived old RFC/RFV/etc discussions to entry talk pages (to fit the way those things are archived today), and moving things like Wiktionary:Wiktionary Logo to "inactive pages". Either way it might make sense to move the discussion-forum monthly-subpage timelines to their own category. - -sche (discuss) 14:54, 21 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
The archive boxes possibly belong in Category:Archive templates, or a putative subcategory of it if they are felt to be sufficiently distinct from its existing contents. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 15:31, 7 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Clearly NOT the same things. Like many categories, not well maintained. Clear criteria are needed, both for membership in manually maintained categories and for the application of templates that auto-insert pages into categories. Perhaps we need a Requests For CRiteria page. DCDuring (talk) 14:01, 7 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

merge Category:Enclitics by language into Category:Clitics by language, and all subcats

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Latest comment: 1 month ago1 comment1 person in discussion

In practice, the large majority of clitics are enclitic (not proclitic), and most enclitics are categorized simply as clitics rather than enclitics, so I don't think the distinction is necessary here. (And wee don't even have a Category:Proclitics by language ...) Benwing2 (talk) 22:49, 3 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Compound terms by language -> Category:Compounds by language

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Latest comment: 3 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

The subcategories of LANG compound terms are called exocentric compounds, dvandva compounds, etc., using compounds not compound terms. For consistency I think we should rename the top-level category. Benwing2 (talk) 00:30, 5 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

No objection. — Sgconlaw (talk) 17:47, 7 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Vṛddhi derivatives by language and Category:Vṛddhi gerundives by language -> 'Vrddhi [etc.]' (no diacritic)

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Latest comment: 21 days ago4 comments2 people in discussion

We write CAT:Tatpurusa compounds by language not CAT:Tatpuruṣa compounds by language. We write CAT:Vyadhikarana compounds by language (which apparently doesn't exist at all and should likely be deleted in the category tree ...) not CAT:Vyadhikaraṇa compounds by language. We write CAT:Karmadharaya compounds by language not CAT:Karmadhāraya compounds by language. We write CAT:Dvandva compounds by language not CAT:Dvaṃdva compounds by language. So why are we pretentiously adding a diacritic to vrddhi? Benwing2 (talk) 00:57, 5 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Theknightwho I see you made this change a week or two, undiscussed. I am going to undo it. Benwing2 (talk) 05:17, 5 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2 For the same reason we include it in etymology sections. It's inconsistent to remove it, and you have always been in the minority in removing things like this. If you want to change it you need to seek consensus, not me. Theknightwho (talk) 13:52, 5 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Theknightwho Dude. I already pointed out that it's inconsistent to have diacritics in 'vṛddhi' categories when we don't do this in any other categories. Did you not notice this? Also, it's never been the case that people can make undiscussed changes and then demand that someone seek consensus to undo the change. No one gets a free pass to make changes the way they like. Consensus goes forwards, not in reverse. Benwing2 (talk) 22:51, 19 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Add more subcategories to Category:Regional Kermanic

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Latest comment: 21 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

There are already subcategories for Judeo-Borujerdi and Judeo-Hamadani. I feel there should also be subcategories for other Jewish varieties such as Judeo-Borujerdi, Judeo-Esfahani, Judeo-Kashani, Judeo-Kermani, and Judeo-Yazdi. Penguin112358 (talk) 17:01, 5 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

I support this in general, but are all these varieties properly grouped under Kermanic? I don't know enough about Iranian languages to know. Pinging @-sche and @Victar. Benwing2 (talk) 00:43, 20 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Terms with obsolete senses by language and extinct languages

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Latest comment: 4 days ago4 comments3 people in discussion

With living languages, "obsolete" means not spoken now. With an extinct language, "now" could be any time in the history of the language. With a proto-language, time is just an educated guess. How is it that we have categories for "obsolete" terms/senses for any languages that aren't spoken anymore? Below is a list of such categories that I noticed. There are probably more. There may be some reason to keep some of these, but we need to have some kind of criteria. Otherwise we could put every term in these languages in such categories. Or I suppose we could also set things so that putting "obsolete" as a label for a term in an extinct language wouldn't add a category.

Category:Classical Nahuatl terms with obsolete senses
Category:Old Norse terms with obsolete senses
Category:Old Spanish terms with obsolete senses
Category:Old Swedish terms with obsolete senses
Category:Ottoman Turkish terms with obsolete senses
Category:Proto-Slavic terms with obsolete senses

Chuck Entz (talk) 05:55, 6 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

I would take "obsolete", in the context of e.g. Norse sváss, to be an assertion that by the later stages of the language, the term (used in the early stages) was obsolete... of course, it might be clearer to use a label like "Early [Language Name]" in such cases. In the case of Ꝍ, the label was added back when the entry was "Translingual", in which context it made more sense (as an assertion that the letter is no longer used today); whether the retention of the label when the entry was changed to Norse makes sense, I am unsure. - -sche (discuss) 04:07, 11 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
They should have written about the chronolects the usage is imagined for, if they only knew. You could write “{{lb|langcode|obsolete|_|by year range}} and then you would have the same problem. For Proto-Slavic it is unworkable, other editors write “in earlier usage”. Other than that, for extinct languages this might be a categorized as a regular cleanup category. Fay Freak (talk) 06:45, 22 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Similar concerns could apply to CAT:LANG terms with archaic senses (current examples include e.g. Old Norse dauðr), or, viewed another way, if it's intelligible to say that a Norse term was "archaic" (used in later stages of the language only for archaic effect, unlike in earlier stages), then it's probably also intelligible to say a term was "obsolete" (not used at all in later stages, unlike in earlier stages). - -sche (discuss) 03:29, 7 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

Five daily prayers

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Latest comment: 21 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Not long ago I fixed the template Template:table:Five daily prayers and its language-specific subtemplates. It adds Category:Five daily prayers, which isn't in the category tree. I don't know enough about Islam to be sure that this is a worthwhile category, so I'm bringing it here for others to decide. This would be a mixed category for names of the five daily prayers as well as terms related to them. It should have Category:Islam as the main parent, but also be in Category:Prayer and perhaps Category:Named prayers. The matter of whether the templates themselvex are worthwhile is a separate issue, so if this request fails the templates should simply be modified to not add the category. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:39, 11 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure a "Five daily prayers" category is worth it; seems too specific and won't have enough terms to fill it. (Also we try to avoid mixed categories.) I think categorizing into Category:Named prayers and Category:Islam is enough. Benwing2 (talk) 00:25, 20 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Nuxalk voiceless terms → blc

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Latest comment: 14 days ago7 comments3 people in discussion

labels["voiceless terms"] = { description = "Nuxalk terms entirely lacking sonorants, including vowels, nasals and approximants.", parents = {"terms by phonemic property"}, }

Academically relevant concept → https://lingpapers.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2024/07/ICSNL59_Nater_2_final.pdf Gattonero2001 (talk) 17:34, 16 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure we need this. We already have [[Category:Bella Coola words spelled without vowels]], which is well-populated. It's true that this includes words with m and n and such, but even so it gets the important idea of consonant-only words, which are abundant in Bella Coola and (I think) other Salish languages. Benwing2 (talk) 00:38, 20 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
I too am unsure whether we need this, though I am not opposed to it. It does seem like the main interesting 'absence', in Bella Coola (in some words), is vowels, which we already have a category for. Some people say, well, sonorants are functioning like vowels, and so they are interested in the words that don't have (even non-vowel) sonorants, voiceless terms... but then other people theorize that (even voiceless) continuants are functioning like vowels, so really if we wanted to categorize words which truly lacked anything vowel-like, even "voiceless terms" would not be enough, people might be interested in whether any terms have neither sonorants nor continuants. (E.g., Gary B. Palmer's 1996 Toward a Theory of Cultural Linguistics, page 286, says "Another property of vowels is that they are continuant. Since fricatives are also continuant, they might function as syllabic nuclei on this basis. Even though they are voiceless, their continuant property gives them a kind of family resemblance to vowels. Because of the resemblance, we could theorize that speakers of Bella Coola may give prosodic license to fricatives, allowing them to act as though they were vowels.") But eh, we have categories for various kinds of things even when they are not the only kind of thing, and it does seem like some people are interested in Bella Coola terms with no sonorants (even if they have other continuants). - -sche (discuss) 14:31, 21 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Categories for plosive-only and fricative-only terms would also be interesting in my opinion. Maybe even something like "unpredictable syllabicity" as in ksnmak /csnm̩ac/.
I had to populate "words spelled without vowels" manually, how to recognize new words automatically? Gattonero2001 (talk) 07:08, 25 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
The category Category:English words spelled without vowels is added automatically by Module:en-headword, but it depends on terms using an English-specific headword template that goes through this module. Nuxalk doesn't really have any such lang-specific templates, and rather than create them, IMO it would be better to make this work even when {{head}} is used. We have certain such categories like CAT:English palindromes and Category:Long English words that are added automatically by Module:headword based on language-specific data modules that include e.g. which digraphs and trigraphs to treat as single characters for palindrome-determination purposes and how long a word has to be to count as "long". We could potentially add a similar "words without vowels" category and have language-specific lists of vowels. But I think in addition to something like that, we should allow for language-specific category-insertion handlers that can insert arbitrary categories based on headword properties, such as obstruent-only terms/words or terms/words with unpredictable syllabicity or whatever. This is something to add to my todo list (and in order to implement it, I'd need to have details on the algorithm needed to compute such categories) Benwing2 (talk) 02:38, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
I'm not sure what exact info would be necessary, but Nuxalk orthography is almost 100% phonemic and there's an alphabet appendix that could be useful.
I had created "terms with /ɦ/" by copying "German terms with /w/", both are manually added to "terms by phonemic property". In Nuxalk that can be predicted by checking for <h> not preceded by <l> or <lh> which is rare.
I don't think "unpredictable syllabicity" can be automated neatly, it would be easier to add by hand. "Unwritten glottal stop" would need to check for initial /ʔ/ in the IPA and a lack of corresponding <7>. Gattonero2001 (talk) 10:03, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
It wouldn't just apply to words beginning with orthographic vowels, see ʔmt and ʔNuxalk. Gattonero2001 (talk) 10:07, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

i would like to create a label for Category:en:Magic

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Latest comment: 17 days ago3 comments3 people in discussion

just now i added the label {{lb|en|magic}} to conjurer, having seen it on the page magician's guilt. but when i saved the page, i noticed it wasn't linked or categorized, so then i looked and realized that all of the pages in the en:Magic category are being added there by hand, with the label doing nothing. since we have a couple of dozen terms, i think it deserves a category of its own. in fact i was wondering if there might be a category already specifically for stage magic, which i didnt find, although we do have the category category:en:Acting. basically, i'm just detailing the situation and asking for a resolution, not asking for anything specific. —Soap— 16:00, 23 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Soap: "magic" by itself is vague—is it for conjuring or prestidigitation, or fictional magic? — Sgconlaw (talk) 02:13, 24 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
There's also the "serious" kind of ceremonial or ritual magic, e.g. voodoo or Aleister Crowley. ~2026-51296-24 (talk) 02:23, 24 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:English terms suffixed with -er (agent noun) and Category:English terms suffixed with -er (agent suffix)

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Latest comment: 12 days ago20 comments5 people in discussion

Category:English terms suffixed with -er (agent suffix) should be replaced by Category:English terms suffixed with -er (agent noun). — Sgconlaw (talk) 02:10, 24 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Sgconlaw  Support But I suggest some other changes as well:
  1. The biggest (and possibly most controversial): merge Category:English terms suffixed with -er (occupation) with Category:English terms suffixed with -er (agent noun). In practice there is no clear separation between someone who merely does something (in general) and someone who specifically does something as an occupation, leading to a lot of miscategorization, e.g. archiver and autopsier are in the latter category when they should arguably be in the former. Since I think it's impossible to cleanly maintain this separation, I think we should just merge these two.
  2. Eliminate Category:English terms suffixed with -er (correspondent). This has only 1 entry and I don't know what "correspondent" means here so this should be easy.
  3. Rethink Category:English terms suffixed with -er (entertainment) and Category:English terms suffixed with -er (relational). The former category contains a mixture of terms for entertainment genres, e.g. suspenser, and terms for entertainment occupations, like scripter. The latter should go in the occupations subcategory, and the former probably in Category:English terms suffixed with -er (relational), which I would maybe rename Category:English terms suffixed with -er (related object); -er can be used informally to designate an object with nearly any type of relationship with the base noun (compare docksider/topsider and see the multiple meanings of screamer); entertainment genres is just one of many such use cases. As is, Category:English terms suffixed with -er (relational) has a lot of misclassified items.
  4. Rename Category:English terms suffixed with -er (inhabitant) to Category:English terms suffixed with -er (demonym) for clarity.
  5. Rename Category:English terms suffixed with -er (ideology) to Category:English terms suffixed with -er (adherent); these are not terms for ideologies but terms for adherents of specified ideologies.
  6. Merge Category:English terms suffixed with -er (patient) into Category:English terms suffixed with -er (related object) (see above), as they are trying to capture the same concept.
  7. Rename Category:English terms suffixed with -er (measurement) to something else as the result is not a measurement but a person or thing of a specified measurement; maybe Category:English terms suffixed with -er (entity with measure)? entity with measure is a bit awkward but is clear. Maybe Category:English terms suffixed with -er (with measure) or even Category:English terms suffixed with -er (with size) is clear enough.
  8. Possibly merge Category:English terms suffixed with -er (action noun) into Category:English terms suffixed with -er (related object); if not, rename it to something to clarify its use specifically in law, such as Category:English terms suffixed with -er (legal item).
Also ping @-sche who usually has god opinions about things like this. Benwing2 (talk) 03:57, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
It looks like these originate from the senseids in the -er entry. The "correspondent" sense was added by an IP geolocating to Albuquerque in January of 2025 diff. The opaque wording is probably why it's been used only once in the 20 months since then. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:51, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2: I oppose merging the “occupation” and “agent noun” categories as the latter is for verb derivations (which we also define agent noun as), as indicated in the definition (“(added to verbs) A person or thing that does an action indicated by the root verb; used to form an agent noun”). This is the main difference between the categories rather than “someone who merely does something (in general)” as opposed to “someone who specifically does something as an occupation”. J3133 (talk) 05:24, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
But there are tons of misclassifications in both directions, which shows this distinction just isn't maintainable. E.g. Amigaer "a user or fan of the Commodore Amiga" is in "occupations"; so is bridge-and-tunneler, etc. Terms for programs and devices that do a specified thing are completely randomly categorized into one or the other; and so on. I continue to believe that this distinction is completely unmaintainable, and I challenge you to show otherwise. Benwing2 (talk) 05:32, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Furthermore, Wikipedia's article on agent noun makes it abundantly clear that they consider occupational nouns to be agent nouns. Benwing2 (talk) 05:34, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2: These are correctly in the “occupation” category, as indicated in the usage note, “The occupational sense is often applied generally to members of a group, as in crewer (“a member of a crew”) and Z-lister (“one on the Z-list”); fans and hobbyists, as in K-popper (“a fan of K-pop”), and those who use a particular tool or instrument, as in JavaScripter (“a programmer who uses JavaScript”).” J3133 (talk) 05:37, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
(a) you haven't responded to most of my points; (b) that usage note, which I assume you wrote, is extremely arbitrary in what it defines as "occupation"; (c) it is trivially easy to find misclassified entries, like under Category:English terms suffixed with -er (agent noun): atomizer; bagpiper; attacker; attender; auctioner; autoballaster; autoclicker; autopsier; averager; awaiter (programming); awarder; awner; babber; babyproofer; backchecker; backer; backerboard; backgrounder; backhander; etc. etc. This is just resulting from me going through a small subset of these; it looks like 30-50% are misclassified. Benwing2 (talk) 05:59, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Your point was that you believe the distinction is “unmaintainable”, but I do not, and, furthermore, we should take into account those who are categorizing these entries. As with all other categories, misclassified ones could be found and should be fixed, nor is it ever certain that everyone will categorize correctly (before or after a category merge). I did not write this usage note, as you have mistakenly assumed; it was added in 2023 by @Al-Muqanna, who (as I had noted) had been working on categoring the -er entries at the time (including observing the aforementioned distinction). J3133 (talk) 06:28, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Fine, we will agree to disagree, but what is the point of a category when 30-50% of the entries are misclassified? Benwing2 (talk) 07:01, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Re 3. Category:English terms suffixed with -er (entertainment) is essentially an etymology category as (almost?) all the terms derive from initial documented use being in Variety. The Variety -er is (exclusively?) applied to nouns, even in cases where there is a homonymic verb. It is clearly not an agent-noun etymology. Many other terms seem to follow the Variety pattern.
In general many terms seem to belong in both the occupation category (topic) and the agent noun category (etymology). This is strongly reminiscent of the failure to distinguish between topic and register/usage_restriction in our displayed labels. It may be a symptom of trying to accomplish too much by combining our labels and our categories. I don't see the point of "cleaning up the categories" when there is no conceptual clarity about the criteria for category membership.
Why aren't the suffix categories exclusively about etymology/morphology? DCDuring (talk) 14:27, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
We tend to distinguish based on synchronic criteria, for good reason. If we tried to distinguish the noun -er formations on etymology, we'd end up with a horrible mess because (1) some nouns are formed in English based on the agent -er suffix (which has two origins, (a) French -eur, which in turn has two origins, Latin -ōr(em) and Latin -ātōr(em); and (b) Old English -ere, which comes from Latin -ārius); (2) some nouns are calqued on French terms in -eur, see above; (3) some nouns are calqued on Latin terms in -or or -ātor or -ārius. These distinct diachronic origins have little relevance for modern English because there is only one agent noun suffix synchronically.
And the fact that many nouns are both "agent-noun" and "occupation" nouns is exactly why I'm proposing merging them; it would be a huge mess to categorize correctly in this scheme because so many of our definitions don't even distinguish the two usages (and potentially any agent noun can represent an occupation as well). Benwing2 (talk) 17:29, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Your observation does not provide nearly sufficient justification for combination. How many (both currently and ideally [in a reanalyzed sample]) would be 1. in agent, not occupation, 2. in occupation, not agent, 3. in both occupation and agent? DCDuring (talk) 23:16, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
I agree with @Chuck Entz that the categories are probably meant to mirror the various senses at -er, and I guess it’s logical that they do so. I’m not very sure what’s the best way to tidy up the senses, and whether some of them can be merged. I would also point out that if the “agent suffix” category is being generated by a template ({{etymon}}?), then that needs to be changed too so that the wrong category doesn’t keep getting recreated. — Sgconlaw (talk) 03:44, 28 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
@DCDuring: “Occupation” is the identifier for the sense, not a name meant to cover every case, nor for all occupations. The “agent noun” category is for derivations from verbs (as indicated both in the definition for the sense and for agent noun), whereas the “occupation” category is for derivations from nouns (as also indicated in the definition), therefore, e.g., builder, despite that it can denote an “occupation”, belongs in the former as build is a verb. Benwing similarly misunderstood this by stating that “that many nouns are both "agent-noun" and "occupation" nouns” (and should have, but did not, read the entry beforehand). J3133 (talk) 04:57, 28 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
@J3133: That just requires the analysis to be at the sense or, at least, at the Etymology level. I don't see how we can support analysis-free judgments. At the most obvious level, not every occupation name ends in er or is an agent noun in English morphology. And equally obviously not every noun ending in er is an occupation name.
Is this all the result of trying to simplify our hopelessly confused label-and-category system? I've always thought that, at least for English, a properly worded full definition should be the sole definition-line indication of "topic". (The one-word suggested translations that usually pass for definitions in FL sections may need all the help they can get from topical labels.) DCDuring (talk) 16:38, 28 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
“Occupation” is the identifier for the sense, not a name meant to cover every case, nor for all occupations. Then it is utterly misnamed and should be called "agent denominal nouns" while the other is "agent deverbal nouns". Benwing2 (talk) 05:01, 28 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2: I do not oppose renaming the categories to better reflect the definitions of their corresponding senses—if there is consensus to do so,—but our definition of agent noun (“A noun that denotes an agent […] that performs the action denoted by the verb […]”) indicates that only deverbal nouns can be called “agent nouns”. J3133 (talk) 05:47, 28 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
That is something Wiktionary-specific. Wikipedia article on agent nouns shows examples of agent nouns derived from nouns, e.g. the Polish equivalent of forester, and none of the other dictionaries cited under agent noun specifically say they have to be derived from verbs. Benwing2 (talk) 06:02, 28 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
@User:Denwing2 Are agent-noun categories supposed to be semantic, etymological, or specifically morphological? DCDuring (talk) 16:38, 28 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Long English words -> Category:English long words

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Latest comment: 13 days ago6 comments3 people in discussion

Yes, Long English words sounds more natural than English long words, but it violates the normal order for such categories, which (except for Requests ... categories) always put the language name first. This makes it harder to find; in this case I knew there was a category for long words in English, but I was surprised to find no Category:English long words, and it didn't occur to me to look under Category:Long English words (I tried Category:English very long words, Category:English long terms, etc., to no avail). Yes, we could put category renames from all 'FOO long words' to 'Long FOO words' but that seems more trouble that it's worth solely to avoid a bit of clunkiness in category naming. (We already have categories with clunky names like Category:Terms by etymology subcategories by language and IMO even worse Category:Lemmas subcategories by language, and I haven't heard a lot of complaints about the naming of these categories or proposals for different names.) Benwing2 (talk) 03:23, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Actually I think an even better idea is to categorize by explicit length rather than have a language-dependent and semi-arbitrary definition of "long". Hence Category:English words with 20-24 letters, Category:English words with 25-29 letters, Category:English words with 30-34 letters, etc. for multiples of 5 starting with 20. (Currently the definition of "long" is set in Module:headword/data to be language-specific, either 20 or 25 with no rhyme or reason whatsoever.) Benwing2 (talk) 05:12, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
Why multiples of 5, and not one category for every length (1, 2, 3 etc.)? The latter would make it easier for anyone wanting to retrieve ordered sets of words by length. For syllable counts we have one category for each distinct count. ~2026-51961-24 (talk) 14:34, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
We could certainly do it that way but I thought it might be more convenient for people looking for long words to have them grouped into buckets. My original idea in fact was Category:English words with 25 or more letters, Category:English words with 30 or more letters, etc. but then e.g. a 100-letter word would end up in a whole lot of categories. Benwing2 (talk) 18:34, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
I don't think there are many people who care about the difference between a 25-letter and a 35-letter word. I think you're better off having a single long-word category sorted in descending order by number of letters, with headers for the different values of the sortkey. Also keep in mind that word length varies widely between languages, from isolating languages where every morpheme is a separate word to agglutinative languages where a single word can be an entire sentence- almost a paragraph- with roots and prefixes, suffixes, infixes, circumfixes and clitics filling the roles of pronouns, adverbs, prepositions, etc. as well as subjects, objects and verbs. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:52, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Chuck Entz I like your idea of sorting by number of letters. But yes I'm aware that word length varies for different languages; however it's not reasonably possible to specify for every single language in any consistent fashion what constitutes a "long" word, since it's so subjective. Even in our current info, we only have about 8 or 9 languages with things that don't make sense, e.g. why is the threshold >= 20 letters for German but >= 25 letters for English? Since German favors writing closed compounds and English open compounds, shouldn't it be the other way around? Benwing2 (talk) 22:16, 27 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

Addition of puristic terms category

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Latest comment: 13 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I would like to have a puristic terms category added under the Category:Malayalam terms by usage. ~2026-52102-22 (talk) 03:41, 28 September 2026 (UTC)Reply

October 2026

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Category request for Arabic teknonyms and Islamic figures.

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Latest comment: 4 days ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Hello,

I feel that there should be a category for Arabic Kunya names which would include teknonyms such as أم كلثوم, أبو بكر; as well as epithets such as أبو هريرة, أبو لهب, أبو تراب ; and also non-personal names such as أبو ظبي, أم القيوين. I am not sure if the last category falls under Kunya technically though, but it would be nice to have a category encompassing each/all of these kinds of terms.

Also while there is a category for Biblical figures, there is none for Islamic figures. I think there should be a category for Quranic figures (e.g.: موسى, ذو القرنين), as well as one for Sahaba/Tabi'un (e.g.: أبو بكر, عمر).

I am curious to hear your opinions.

Thank you, Miyika (talk) 09:40, 4 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Miyika IMO, yes to both. I recently added {{andronym}} on request, and adding {{teknonym}} should be easy. Likewise for Quranic figures. Potentially the output could be customized for Arabic and spoken Arabic varieties so it says "kunya name" instead of "teknonym"; do you think this is a good idea? Benwing2 (talk) 22:31, 6 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
I feel like having it say Kunya name might be better because for names a Kunya can be metaphorical or non-literal and not necessarily strictly teknonymic. like Abu Hurayra (lit: father of a kitten) and Abu Jahl (lit: father of ignorance) these may not technically count as teknonyms but they are still Kunya. But I would also like to hear the input of other Arabic speakers and what they think. Miyika (talk) 03:07, 7 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

comparable adjectives/adverbs -> gradable adjectives/adverbs?

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Latest comment: 3 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Google AI thinks we are behind the times in our terminology. When I asked what term is preferred among linguists when an adjective can be compared (i.e. has any sort of comparative form, whether synthetic or periphrastic): "comparable adjectives" or "gradable adjectives"? I got this:

Among linguists, the preferred and standard term is gradable adjectives. [1, 2, 3]
While "comparable adjectives" is occasionally used in general grammar or ESL contexts to describe adjectives that can form comparisons, formal linguistics almost exclusively uses the term gradability and labels these words as gradable. [1, 2, 3]
Linguists prefer this term because the ability to be compared (whether synthetically like taller or periphrastically like more beautiful) stems from the underlying semantic property of gradability—meaning the adjective describes a quality that exists on a scale or continuum rather than an absolute, all-or-nothing state (such as dead or pregnant). Because they represent a scale, gradable adjectives also uniquely accept degree modifiers or intensifiers like very, slightly, or extremely. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

There is a discussion up above about renaming "uncomparable" to "incomparable" or "noncomparable"; it has stalled since none of the three seem very appealing. Using "gradable" and "non-gradable" sound fine to me and would sidestep this issue. ("non-gradable" seems to be the normal linguistic term; "ungradable" describes a terrible classroom paper and "ingradable" is not a word). Benwing2 (talk) 22:37, 6 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

My main concern is whether we should use category names that are understandable by laypersons, or whether in technical areas such as linguistics we should use terms currently in use by experts. I see arguments for both options. On the one hand, one could say that categories are only used for maintenance and ordinary readers are unlikely to bother with them, so it's fine to use gradable/non-gradable. On the other hand, I'm somewhat uncomfortable if this means changing our labels in line with the category names (which would be logical), instead of leaving them as comparable/uncomparable. The upshot is, I'm not sure. — Sgconlaw (talk) 17:53, 7 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

Category:Baháʼí Faith -> Category:Baha'i Faith; Category:Raëlism -> Category:Raelism; Category:Qur'an maybe -> Category:Quran; Category:Đạo Mẫu maybe -> Category:Dao Mau

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Latest comment: 3 days ago5 comments2 people in discussion

I have listed four categories on religious topics, which I think should have their names simplified in accordance with the most common English practices. I define "most common" as that found in news media and general-usage dictionaries, rather than what is found in Wikipedia, scholarly sources and religious writings from the religions involved, which generally prefer the extra diacritics. I have listed them in order, from most justifiable to least justifiable (but I believe all are justifiable):

  1. Category:Baháʼí Faith -> Category:Baha'i Faith: the form with two accented letters and a Unicode apostrophe is nearly impossible to type, and per Google AI, the form Baha'i is the most common general-usage form.
  2. Category:Raëlism -> Category:Raelism: here again the form without diacritic is (per Google AI) the most common general-usage form, although scholarly journals prefer the form with diacritic.
  3. Category:Qur'an -> Category:Quran: I already posted in WT:TR about this. It seems that Quran without any apostrophe is the most common general-usage form.
  4. Category:Đạo Mẫu -> Category:Dao Mau: Google AI says usage is split here; I mostly include it because the form with all the diacritics (including one letter with two diacritics) is nearly impossible to type.

I have not included Category:Candomblé because Google AI says the form with accent is the general-usage form.

Obviously Google AI is not completely trustworthy but it does cite its sources and generally gives descriptions of which spellings are used by different sources; as mentioned above, I have cited news media and general-purpose dictionary spellings as the canonical "general-usage" spellings. (After all, we're also a general-usage dictionary.)

FWIW I trust Google AI's explanations a lot more than Google Ngrams, which gives no context at all and has lots of known issues. Benwing2 (talk) 23:24, 7 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Benwing2: maybe the form used at the English Wikipedia would be a good guide as to the most prevalent usage, especially if there has been a discussion about what the title should be on the talk page. — Sgconlaw (talk) 23:29, 7 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
Wikipedia often prefers more pedantic spellings, esp. when diacritics are involved, than are actually in common usage. Sometimes that is simply the preference of one editor. Wikipedia prefers "Sámi" over "Sami" when Google AI reports:
Sami: This is the most common spelling used in everyday journalism, general writing, and reference platforms like Encyclopaedia Britannica.
The same can be said in innumerable cases of Unicode apostrophes vs. straight apostrophes. Benwing2 (talk) 00:06, 8 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
@Benwing2: ah, OK. I thought the policy was to use the most common or prevalent form. — Sgconlaw (talk) 00:10, 8 October 2026 (UTC)Reply
That is the theory, and it seems to apply OK to sufficiently common topics; e.g. it took quite awhile for w:Twitter to move to w:X (social network), and the Czech Republic and Ivory Coast are still found under w:Czech Republic and w:Ivory Coast, but for names of languages, religions, etc. often the people preferring the pedantic spelling win out because they are more motivated to push their spelling. Benwing2 (talk) 00:18, 8 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

Labels: By Extension, Etc.

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Latest comment: 20 hours ago1 comment1 person in discussion

These are undefined labels with what I would call "substantial usage"; that being having multiple uses by different editors over different words. Also, this label may be merged together under one name—perhaps "by extension". Usage of these undefined labels is shown in the below articles:

Uses of "By Extension":

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gone_fishing

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/buyer_beware

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cittadinesco

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spicchio

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/clear_the_decks

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sguinzagliare

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ekstrakurikuri

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/indigestible

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E0%B0%AA%E0%B1%8B%E0%B0%B5%E0%B1%81

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/town_crier

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/melted

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/between_wind_and_water

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C4%8Dedo

Uses of "Broadly" and similar labels:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/strong_drink (This link also has a usage of "narrowly")

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chancel

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/child

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/identification

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Limonade#German

As seen, "by extension" is used generously and perhaps deserving of a label. Consider this proposal. P.S. To find a string of characters, a word, or a number, in this case the word "broadly," "by extension," or simply "broad," use Ctrl (or Cmd) + Shift + G.

Zeta Puppis (Naos) (talk) 19:20, 10 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

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