Wiktionary:Information desk/2020/January

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Split Hebrew entries into Modern Hebrew and Biblical Hebrew

Hi all! I'm new here. (I've used Wiktionary for quite some time, but haven't really done much editing before.) Anyways, I was wondering: what do people here think of splitting Hebrew entries into Modern Hebrew and Biblical Hebrew entries? The pronunciation has of Hebrew words has changed quite a bit over time, so I think it might be useful to have separate pronunciations for Modern and Biblical entries. And the sense of some words has probably shifted some over time. I hope this was the right place to post this suggestion. If not, I'll be happy to re-post in a more appropriate place. Thanks for reading! :) JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 00:56, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

@JonathanHopeThisIsUnique I and others think that a split at that level does not pay. It is still the same language, especially as written. After all it died out in the Middle Ages and was resurrected later. Thus the pronunciation has not even “changed” either. If an editor knows that a word is only Biblical or only Modern or only Medieval he can write it, but editors leave out information they aren’t sure about and that’s the result. Fay Freak (talk) 01:24, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't have thoughts about the main question, but I wanted to say that having separate pronunciations for Modern and Biblical Hebrew is not dependent on their entries being split.--Urszag (talk) 21:25, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

For an example how different pronunciations can be presented, see שבת. Very likely there was no unique standard pronunciation also in the times when ancient Hebrew was still a living language – neither diachronically, nor synchronically. There is little recorded information to go by, but surely אור and עור were not homophones in some major dialects.  --Lambiam 09:14, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi again! Thanks for your replies. What I think would be nice is to expand the etymology section of more Hebrew words to show their development from Proto-Semitic (and ideally, trace the Proto-Semitic roots to Proto-Afro-Asiatic). I don't know if that would require separating entries into Modern Hebrew and Biblical Hebrew or not. I assumed it did, which is actually the reason I posted that suggestion. Also, in general, how do you go about adding such reconstructions? Does Wiktionary have any go-to sources for Proto-Semitic etymologies? And more generally, do you have suggestions on how I can contribute more to Wiktionary in general? I'm a complete amateur but I really love seeing detailed etymologies, so I've always wanted to contribute to Wiktionary somehow. Thanks for reading again! :) JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 06:45, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@JonathanHopeThisIsUnique: Usually it is too hard or or uncertain to trace to Proto-Semitic words, save for the commonest words, and even for those it is a tough job to create Reconstruction pages (I think I have created the most), because of the scripts of descendants and we like to respect the original script to deliver top-quality, and also the understanding of Proto-Semitic is low if one does not know multiple Semitic languages, all of which are hard. I have not decided yet either how Proto-Semitic pages should be formatted if there isn’t a word to be reconstructed but a root – there is no guidance beyond the basic vocabulary which has been treated most thoroughly for body parts and animal names by Militarev and Kogan 2000/2005, to answer your question about whether there are go-to sources, unlike for Proto-Indo-European, and I am not sure about all the morphological forms that existed in Proto-Semitic by reason of not being read into the obscurely spread treatises about Proto-Semitic morphology nor some necessary Semitic languages which is also a reason to desist. Technically one must be a cuneiform scholar to really get a picture of Proto-Semitic. Also note that if reconstructions are not uncertain – when a consonant has changed and you do not know the original –, then one can reconstruct originals but it is too easy, one can just check three consonants in the dictionaries of diverse Semitic languages to see if a verb or root is Proto-Semitic. So it is either too hard or too boring. Proto-Afro-Asiatic you can forget, it won’t happen in this century, the material to be known for an image of it is Augean; after all it is the farthest-back language we can discern, displayed by the hardest languages one can learn. The Hamito-Semitic Etymological Dictionary you might have discovered is unheeding and to be avoided. Fay Freak (talk) 02:18, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your very in depth reply! So it seems that in general, it is very difficult to reconstruct Proto Semitic roots/words. But the book by Militarev and Kogan is a good source. And the Hamito-Semitic etymological dictionary is a bad source and should be avoided. Right? Also, do you happen to know of a list of good sources for Proto-Semitic that are generally accepted on Wiktionary? Particularly electronic ones that are available for free? (I'm new to doing research, and right now it seems that finding and accessing good sources might be almost as hard as actually using them to write good etymologies. :P) Thanks a ton for your help again! :) JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 03:25, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@JonathanHopeThisIsUnique At your age you can do best by learning a Semitic language or more thoroughly, so you can contribute with missing definitions and quotes. This is also more easily possible electronically, or with little material investment. And if you are versed in one then more might come by themselves. Fay Freak (talk) 20:52, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

My native language is Hebrew, which is probably the main reason I enjoy reading more about it. :) — This unsigned comment was added by JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk • contribs).

@JonathanHopeThisIsUnique: In that case, ברוך הבא. I look forward to your additions here and please make sure to sign your posts. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:13, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! I hope I will be able to contribute using my knowledge of Hebrew. :) Question: Is there a way for me to easily find Hebrew words that need an English translation? Or the other way around? When I do find words to translate, should I make up my own translation? Or should I find a reputable dictionary and quote a translation from it (and cite the dictionary?) And sorry for forgetting to sign my last comment; I'll try to remember that in the future. :) JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 22:32, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@JonathanHopeThisIsUnique: Category:Requests for translations into Hebrew. And yes, you do have to come up with original definitions: usually, a definition is a copyrighted work and we cannot reproduce them here. As far as a one-word translation goes, that is something that cannot be copyrighted, so when hambre simply reads "hunger" and links to our entry at hunger, the Spanish translation is a single word that leads to a new, unique definition at our English-language entry. You can have more complicated translations or other entries in different languages that should be unique (e.g. at saudade) but for a single word, that's fine. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:29, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Also, I'm not sure if this is the right place to mention this, but I noticed that the Hebrew entry ספר states that the word is "From Biblical Hebrew 𐤎𐤐𐤓 (spr)". Is it considered good practice to distinguish Biblical Hebrew from later stages of Hebrew as this entry does, even though Biblical Hebrew words don't get their own entries? JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 08:01, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

No, it is weird and not good practice. Imma put it into an alternative forms section like on יְרוּשָׁלַיִם. Fay Freak (talk) 02:18, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Awesome! Thanks for fixing it. :) JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 02:54, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

anceps and forceps

How come the plural of anceps is ancipites but that of forceps is forcipes (not forcipites)? Or is there an error? Equinox ◑ 04:10, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Well anceps is an adjective and forceps is a noun. The plural form "ancepites" also seems extremely rare. It could be an error. DTLHS (talk) 05:43, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Occurrences of ancepites (of which I find only one, in the taxonomic description of Calamus steenisii Furtado) are almost certainly spelling errors for ancipites, which is not particularly rare.  --Lambiam 09:38, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

The -ceps part of anceps comes from caput (“head”), while that of forceps comes from the root of capiō (“to take”). anceps: "double-headed"; forceps: "warm-grabber". So there's a hidden -it- in anceps (from -ut in caput) that surfaces in the plural, but none in forceps. — Eru·tuon 06:26, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Hebrew Transliteration

Hi all! I just wanted to check whether Wiktionary has a standard transliteration system for Hebrew. Or perhaps different transliteration standards for different accents of Hebrew? I ask because I saw two Hebrew quotes transliterated in seemingly different ways. The entry בית has this quotation: וְרִבִּי יוֹחָנָן חִבַּר הַתַּלְמוּד הַיְּרוּשְׁלְמִי בְּאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל אַחַר חָרְבַּן הַבַּיִת בְּקֵרוּב מִשְּׁלוֹשׁ מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה It transliterates it as "veribi yoḥanan ḥibar hatalmuḏ hayerushlemi beʾereṣ yisraʾel aḥar ḥorban habayiṯ beqeruv mishlosh meʾoṯ shana" The entry חבר has this quotation: הֶחָבֵר שֶׁלִּי וַאֲנִי הָלַכְנוּ לְסֶרֶט אֶתְמוֹל It transliterates it as "Hekhavér shelí va'aní halákhnu l'séret etmól" The most noticeable difference for me is that the first uses diacritics and special characters, while the second one doesn't. I personally don't have a strong opinion, but I wanted to check if there is a standard. Thanks for reading! JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 09:00, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

See WT:HE TR. You might also benefit from reading the entry diacritic. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:40, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick reply! So it looks like there's a "regular" Romanization and a "scholarly" Romanization. That makes sense. Is there a way to link a Romanization to an explanation of how the Romanization should be read? Perhaps adding IPA to clarify pronunciations? Most of the plain letters are pretty self-explanatory to English readers, but the modified letters might need an explanation. JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 20:14, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

The headword line has an interpunct that links to the above standard. IPA goes in the Pronunciation section. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:08, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick reply again! :) What you said makes sense. I didn't notice the interpunct, thanks for pointing it out! Do you think it might be a good idea to replace the interpunct with something more noticeable for future readers? Maybe link the transliterated word to the transliteration standard? JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 23:47, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

People always say "wow I didn't know that that dot was a link" and it's hilarious(ly sad). We need to rethink that thing. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 23:57, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply! I'm glad to know I wasn't the only one to miss that the dot is a link. :) What do you think of linking the transliteration itself to the transliteration page? Also, is the dot the usual method for linking to transliteration standards across various languages? Or do other languages which use transliterations use other methods to do this, which could be used for inspiration? JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 01:13, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

The interpunct is almost universal, because it's generated by Module:headword (search for transliteration_page), which is ultimately used by most headword-line templates. For instance, in בית, {{he-noun}} uses Module:he-headword, which in turn uses Module:headword. — Eru·tuon 08:42, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for replying again! Does that mean that you could change the interpunct to something more noticeable across a lot of languages just by editing Module:Headword? If so, do you think that sounds like a good idea? (Right now I'm not sure what exactly it should be changed to; User:-sche had some good suggestions though! JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 19:17, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@JonathanHopeThisIsUnique: Well, yes, if people agreed on it. It could also be marked up so that a user script or gadget could change it. — Eru·tuon 23:50, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm glad you think it's a good idea! Where should this idea be posted if we want people to see it and check that people agree on it? JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 23:59, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't notice that you'd asked two questions – I was answering the first one, whether it could be changed. I don't know if it should be. You can discuss what it could be changed to in WT:BP though. — Eru·tuon 00:06, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Hel, I myself forget that it is a link... maybe if it were more visible and visibly blue, by being a larger symbol, and/or one that doesn't look like it's only there as a divider / punctuation? Or if it had a little dotted underline and some hover-reveal text like some of the symbols used to mark obsolesence in Chinese entries? (Am I wrong that the reason it's so unobtrusive is that it was originally just punctuation and the use of it as the place to link to the transliteration pages came later?) - -sche (discuss) 10:50, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Appendix:Unicode/Cuneiform is missing images

Hi all! I just noticed that Appendix:Unicode/Cuneiform is not showing any images when I view it on my laptop. Is this likely a technical issue on my end? Or have the appropriate images just not been uploaded yet? If it is a technical issue on my end, what information could I provide that might be useful for debugging? Thanks for reading! :) JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 05:23, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I just checked all of the Unicode blocks from Basic Latin to Myanmar Extended-A, and none of the code points had an associated image. I also noticed that some of the blocks displayed tofu instead of actual characters in the "character" slots; I think that might mean I don't have the appropriate fonts installed? Some blocks had all blue tofu, others had all red tofu, and others had both blue and red tofu. I'm not sure why that's the case. I hope this might info might be useful! JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 06:06, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@JonathanHopeThisIsUnique: Oh, yeah, there should definitely be images on some of the Unicode appendixes. Fixed. There aren't many images for cuneiform characters though. See Module:Unicode data/images/012 for the full list. — Eru·tuon 07:02, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Awesome! Thanks for fixing it. :) JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 16:41, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Question about Category: Hebrew Roots

Hi all! I noticed that most Hebrew roots are sub-categorized based on the number of letters of the root, and don't show up directly in Category: Hebrew Roots. However, some roots do show up directly in Category: Hebrew Roots, in addition to being sub-categorized by number of letters. For example, the root alef-bet-dalet is part of Category: Hebrew lemmas and Category: Hebrew roots but is not part of Category: Hebrew 3-letter roots. However, Category:Hebrew terms belonging to the root א־ב־ד is part of that category. I wanted to check if this is how everything should be categorized, or if something is mis-categorized. If something is mis-categorized, what should be changed? And how can I move things to the proper category? Or can someone else fix it? Thanks for reading! :) JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 19:44, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

modus tollendo ponens

The definition of modus tollendo ponens on that wiki page is incorrect. The identification of modus tollendo ponens as a disjunctive syllogism is correct. The example and definition given is that of Modus ponens, a conditional form and not a disjunctive form. The form given on that page is as follows:

1. If non-P, then Q.
   2. non-P.
   3. Therefore, Q.

The above is an example of modus ponens

The correct form of modus tollendo ponens would be as follows:

1. Either A or not A

2. A is false

3. Therefore, not A is true.

Negating the truth of either leg of the disjunct infers the truth of the other leg. You can check this in any introductory logic text book. — This unsigned comment was added by 24.30.14.122 (talk).

Thanks. When I got my philosophy degree, the only class where I didn't get an A+ was logic, so I'll have to brush up before I feel confident to fix it. Note that you can also edit Wiktionary directly. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:10, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Possibility of a list?

I am seeking a comprehensive list of all words entered and verified thus far into the english portion of Wiktionary. This is merely for personal use and I will not at all use it for monetization or anything that may violate this forum's rules.

Category:English lemmas DTLHS (talk) 19:04, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Is there a template for Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon?

A Greek-English Lexicon by Liddell and Scott is available online. It seems generally useful for ancient Greek entries. Is there a template that generates links to it?

Example: I just added πέλωρος. It would be nice to have a link to confirm that the word is not just made up by some guy on the Internet. It was added on the authority of some guy who died before the Internet was invented, as confirmed at [1] and [2]. But manually generating links that might rot is too much trouble. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:07, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Template:R:LSJ DTLHS (talk) 19:09, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

What words have the most homophones?

Someone suggested this could make a good category for the Hall of Fame. It's probably worthwhile to look at non-Chinese words, and then separately at Chinese words. If TemplateTiger still works (it doesn't for me right now), some could be found by checking for {{homophones}} with unusually many parameters. - -sche (discuss) 09:46, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@-sche: Here are homophone templates with 8 consecutive parameters or more, meaning 7 or more homophones.

I hadn't seen TemplateTiger before. Based on the database layout it seems to only log individual template parameters, not whole template instances, so it might be hard to use for this purpose. Anyway, the results are from my template dumps, which contain parsed templates (name and parameters) and their text. They are available at TemplateHoard on Toolforge, though unfortunately they're not easy to use. — Eru·tuon 10:47, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

I had to do 7 homophones or more because there are so many templates with 6 homophones that the page would time out! It would be ~700,000 bytes long as opposed to ~23,000. — Eru·tuon 10:58, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! And: ah, I should have suspected French would have a lot... - -sche (discuss) 11:31, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Creating page

Which type of page should create in this wiki? — This unsigned comment was added by Md Tanbir Islam (talk • contribs).

Well, you presumably know Bengali, so you could create entries for Bengali words we are missing. See CAT:Bengali lemmas to see how to format those words. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:16, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Welcome. You could also have a look at Wiktionary:Requested entries (Bengali) and Category:Requests for verification in Bengali entries.  --Lambiam 16:07, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Repeated borrowings by one language of the same word

Anyone know of other cases where one language repeatedly borrowed a word from another language in different ways, like some English speakers borrowed Narragansett mishcùp as mishcup while others borrowed it as scup, others as paugie, and others as scuppaug (from the plural). (It may be difficult to distinguish cases where a word may have been shortened "in-language", e.g. is blitz from blitzkrieg or Blitzkrieg? And if the difference in form is less extreme than in the mishchup case, it may be difficult to distinguish repeat borrowings from mere variations in spelling upon borrowing.)
I'm especially interested in repeated direct borrowings, but indirect borrowings like the many indirect borrowings of macula or *s-la (tea, chai, cha, lahpet, ...) are also interesting.
(I suppose it would be theoretically possible, but probably too exceedingly tedious to attempt, to search a database dump for this information, e.g. by making a list of all words A,B,C,..., in each language which are said to derive from another word X,Y,Z,..., and then seeing which Xs have the most descendants in the same language.) - -sche (discuss) 20:27, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Some incomplete approaches to get you part-way there (assuming English as the ultimate destination):

1. Look through Category:English doublets, since these are doublets by definition.
2. Look through Category:Learned borrowings by language, since those tend to get borrowed separately as normal borrowings and are more likely to be reborrowed in different contexts at different times.
3. Look through "terms derived from" categories for languages involved in known contacts between radically different language/cultures: aside from American Indian languages, Ancient Greek, Arabic, English, Middle Chinese, Middle Low German, Persian, Portuguese, Sanskrit, and Spanish come to mind.
4. Have someone compile a list of multiple instances of {{bor|...|{donor language code}|{term}}} where the donor language code and the term are the same, with the names of the entries they appear in included in the list (this may be unwieldy for common Wanderworts such as Latin rosa).

Just brainstorming. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:20, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Word list

Hello, where can I find an alphabetical list of English words? K175 (talk) 13:54, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Category:English lemmas Chuck Entz (talk) 13:58, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

And if that's not comprehensive enough, you can download w:en:WP:AWB, make a category recursive list starting from Category:English language (or just Category:English lemmas and Category:English non-lemma forms), and sort alphabetically. A job that big will likely fail, tho. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:10, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Tried to make a compass template for English, but the editor thinks it's vandalism

Like this: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Template:ca-compass but for english instead of catalan. Could someone else make this template on my behalf, or if it already exists and I somehow missed it, point me in that direction (pun not intended)? Thank you — This unsigned comment was added by Pinball larry (talk • contribs).

@Pinball larry: Your edit tripped an abuse filter because some of its wording has been used by vandals in the past, but it's not vandalism so I created {{en-compass}} based on your edit. — Eru·tuon 21:58, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

What is the opposite of Allied?

I’ve been looking for an adjectival form of Axis. Axial would be the expected derivation, but I haven’t found any examples of that. (The closest that I can think of is Fascist.) — (((Romanophile))) ♞ (contributions) 05:10, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I think it's just "Axis" ("Axis countries"). DTLHS (talk) 05:14, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Also “Axis powers”, “Axis capture”, “Axis leaders”, “Axis activity”, “Axis occupation”. These are of course attributive uses of the proper noun.  --Lambiam 22:09, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

So, I deleted the whole definition from an article and no one objects?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/symbol How does it work? — This unsigned comment was added by U180215 (talk • contribs).

It may have escaped people's attention. We don't have as many editors as Wikipedia and there is a higher page-to-editor ratio, so we don't always notice right away. Ideally, you should follow due process and either RFV, RFD, or RFC a sense, or bring it up at the Tea Room, depending on the specific problem you see with the sense. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 06:19, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Because you are not an established editor, your edit went into a "patrolling queue" for other editors to look at. I looked at it and I agreed with you and approved it. As Andrew says, we are a small community and sometimes patrolling takes time. Equinox ◑ 07:24, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

When to use "∴" in lists?

I see the ∴ symbol is being used in, for example, the Derived terms of light (presumably to indicate an entry in the list that is simply related to one above it). Is it new? It seems like a good, sensible idea, but I didn't know about it before. If I was creating or editing a page I wouldn't have known to use it, so I thought I'd better search the Help for any information about how/when to use it... but my problem: I cannot find anything about it. Maitchy (talk) 04:55, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

I have never seen it before, and I would have no idea what it was supposed to mean. DTLHS (talk) 06:26, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

It was added by @Moverton, and our entry at ∴ says it's the symbol for therefore, which w:Therefore sign says is used in proofs. It's no doubt confusing and mystifying for the vast majority of the population who don't work with higher mathematics or logic, but it's harmless enough. I find the sheer number of edits more annoying- 64 in all for one person on one entry. Even that, though, isn't exactly a Crime Against Humanity... Chuck Entz (talk) 06:57, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

The vast majority of people who work professionally with higher mathematics or logic never use this symbol either, although they may know its meaning. You expect to find it in a freshers’ introductory course to logic, but not in a research article. If it is confusing and mystifying, it is IMO not harmless.  --Lambiam 13:47, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

At light it seems to be being used to indicate a term that is derived from a derived term of the entry, rather than a term derived directly from the lemma, thus light-headedly and lightheadedness are derived immediately from light-headed and only indirectly from light itself. I would say (1) we shouldn't be listing such terms at all, as light-headedly and lightheadedness can be listed in the Derived terms of light-headed and should be omitted from the entry for light; and (2) if we do include such indirect derived terms, there are other symbols that would work better than ∴ for them, such as ↳. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:03, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Light wasn't the first one I worked on. I think the first time I used it was on mountain. With that word I was looking at the help pages and available templates to see how all the word lists should be ordered, formatted, &c. I didn't see any mention of 2nd-level or 3rd-level derivatives but thought it would be useful to mark them in some manner to indicate they aren't directly derived. So I invented one. But I'm not wedded to it. As to whether indirectly derived words can be included, yes, absolutely. There is no harm in having a complete list as few words would have a list of any great enormity. Also for example in the list for finance (which I also worked on), a person looking for an adverb would have to look under the entry for financial if it wasn't included in the list for finance; there aren't any adverbs directly derived from finance. Doing it that way would not be user friendly. Finally, I will just add that a lot of these lists seem to be dumping grounds for words, and having taken up the task of cleaning and organizing I find that I rather enjoy putting in the effort. I am open to any suggestions that the community might have. -Mike (talk) 00:32, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

As Mahagaja, I don't think we should list / oppose listing 2nd-level or 3rd-level derivatives in those lists. Canonicalization (talk) 06:26, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I didn't realize I made that number of edits, but I'm not entirely surprised. I was working through the lists of words under the various etymologies of light often just one word at a time. I added new terms that didn't have entries, cleaned up or improved some existing entries, or just found and added terms that hadn't been listed there. And upon completing a word I ensured it was in the proper list with the part of speech marked (completed as I went in part to help keep track of what I had looked at). I have hardly worked on the lists in Etymology 1 so they are still in need of attention. -Mike (talk) 00:32, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree the symbol is opaque and shouldn't be used. Mahagaja's suggested alternative is better, but like him I don't know that any symbol needs to be used, since "second-level" derivations can be offloaded to the pages they're direct derivations of. - -sche (discuss) 21:40, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

I sometimes add 2nd-level derivations to Arabic root pages; but so far only with double asterisk syntax. The reason is also that one might not want to offload them to the pages because there would be a derived terms sections with only one or two derived terms (its mostly only a nisba derivative; there are only two normally (excluding modern artificial formations like in chemistry) occurring derivational suffixes (ـِيّ (-iyy) and ـَة (-a)) and no prefixes in Arabic, everything else transfixes (مَـ (ma-) and مِـ (mi-) are also not prefixes because they come with a vowel after the second consonant, usually ـَ (-a)). Compounds do not exist either in Arabic, although Iḍāfa might form idiomatic terms.)

Then of course it might be that that page whither one would offload is not created yet. It might sound easy to do so but mind for example reconstruction pages where one would need to seek descendants together so it is not always that easy, so people end up adding derived terms under derived terms and descendants under them … Fay Freak (talk) 22:40, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

The cultural shift astounds me. By the time I was 16, '∴' was a very standard abbreviation in school mathematics. This was at grammar school in England. The one problem with it was that dots aren't always very legible. The upside down version, meaning 'because', was less common. --RichardW57 (talk) 12:59, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Looking for someone to help me set up a Wiktionary page for a new language

I am Looking for someone to help me set up a Wiktionary page for the Chatino language, spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico. Send me a message if you know of someone willing to help.

We recognize seven distinct Chatino languages; see Category:Proto-Chatino language and click "Show" next to "Family tree" to see them. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:30, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic

On Wiktionary, I've noticed that often, when it comes to Serbo-Croatian words, the Cyrillic form is listed first. This is problematic, since Cyrillic is the less used and less understood writing system in Serbo-Croatian. Each and every Serbo-Croatian native speaker who attended school in the area of ex-Yugoslavia is literate in Latin, but only some are literate in Cyrillic. I have trouble even imagining a situation where a Serbo-Croatian speaker is literate in Cyrillic and not in Latin. Latin forms should be put first for ease of use and Cyrillic listed as the curiosity. 89.172.78.143 09:45, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

C comes before L in the alphabet, nothing else to it. —Rua (mew) 10:16, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

It might be worth noting that the last time it was discussed, there was fairly broad support for making Latin the primary script for Serbo-Croatian (even if there was some disagreement as to what exactly that should entail). Such a proposal hasn’t yet become policy, though, so (as Rua says) for now we follow the standard convention of keeping them in alphabetical order. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 17:25, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, but the reason we do so is that it is the same with all languages with multiple scripts that have been used so the order of the scripts is predictable by their names. Fay Freak (talk) 17:28, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Since Saints Cyril and Methodius worked together, we could rename the script Methodio-Cyrillic, and then it would come alphabetically after Latin. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:57, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, there is already w:Arebica. 93.136.119.51 19:48, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Citing sources

Hello, I am wondering how to cite my source for information I just added to search. My source is at [redacted] [this link]. 2601:647:5300:670:21B2:F8D7:52D4:1DC4 00:37, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Please don't cite a URI redirecting service. You can include references within ref tags. Have you seen these before? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:42, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Just for the record, that was a rickroll. After this edit, they started undoing everything that appeared in Special:RecentChanges (including an edit of mine)- so I blocked them for disruptive edits. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:03, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

You're a braver man than I: no way am I clicking on a URI shortener. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:13, 1 February 2020 (UTC)