Talk:Nuxalk language

Under-dotted sonorants
Bagemihl also lists a series of sonorants, m n l, with an under-dot, as phonemes. Are these glottalized, or just syllabic? kwami 08:02, 2005 August 20 (UTC)
 * Nater says they're syllabic. Mo-Al (talk) 04:39, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Consonant-only words
I don't have a problem with the concept of syllabic voiceless fricatives, but how do the plosive-only words work? Surely there must at least be voiceless [ə] between them?!? David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 23:28 CEST | 2006/4/25
 * They're aspirated, and the aspiration separates them. I suppose one could claim that aspiration is the same as a voiceless schwa. kwami 22:00, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh! Yeah! Logical! I forgot the aspiration because, confusingly, it's not written in the example words, despite the use of brackets rather than slashes.
 * But then… aspiration isn't voiceless. It can only be followed by a voiced vowel. Could it be that there are non-phonemic epenthetic vowels in those words? Or what else could I be overlooking?
 * BTW, do you happen to know if the aspiration is dropped in words like /ps/ and /sps/ in favor of syllabic [s]?
 * David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 14:08 CEST | 2006/4/28


 * Aspiration is voiceless, and need not be followed by a vowel. I find [phth] perfectly pronounceable on its own. You could regard the aspiration as a very short voiceless schwa with comparatively heavy friction, but it's different from the voiceless vowel of Japanese [suki], which occupies a whole mora. In [ps] I suppose the 'aspirated' [p] is distinguished from [p's] by lacking the ejective release. Both [phs] with nuclear aspiration and [ps] with nuclear [s] are possible; I don't know which they use. I think I once read that the word [sts] 'birthmark'(?) is three syllables, in which case the aspiration on the [t] is a nucleus. ~ Anoni, 13/8/2006


 * Sorry, I've just remembered it was [stt] that was three syllables, so that's not evidence for the above. ~ Anoni, 14/8/2006
 * The whole concept of a syllable becomes difficult and is perhaps not applicable to some languages, especially ones like this. Trying to decide what the nucleus is of some of these words might be meaningless. kwami 18:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I find pretty easy to whisper, but not pronounceable in a normal voice, because the sound that I recognize as [h] can only be released into something voiced because it contains a glottal tap of something. I drop that when I whisper because otherwise I hear . But who knows. Maybe those folks use the glottal fricative/approximant alone, without the flap. Maybe it's just me in the first place. ~:-|
 * David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 23:17 CEST | 2006/9/7
 * 'Whispering' isn't a bad description. The Nuxalk themselves have commented that some of these words can not be said very loud, certainly not yelled. 'Help' is one of them, though fortunately 'help me' contains sonorants and can be yelled. But [h] can be released into anything. See Icelandic for its "preaspirated" stops. kwami 18:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * what's the phrase for help that doesn't contain sonorants? The only ways I can think of (using Nuxalk orthograhpy) are halp-nic-tsx! or "alhnaycaktsx!" My favourite is "ts's" - loud. 184.151.231.2 (talk) 21:12, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
 * There's a lemma for that: Words without vowels. It would be great to include or link to some sound clips though. The only audio in the Words without vowels article (in a Berber language) is in WAV files linked to from a Microsoft Word document that doesn't display well in LibreOffice. I don't know what problem some scientists have with making their stuff accessible. -- One more question. In [kʼxɬɬtʰsxʷ sɬχʷtʰɬɬtʰs (t͡s?)], what are the ɬɬ sequences? Shouldn't these be ɬː ? Or if they consist of two separate ɬ s, what separates them in pronunciation?--88.73.6.122 (talk) 14:25, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * (re. ɬɬ) I don't know. It's easy enough to have two pulses. That is, dynamically increase, decrease, and increase again. That's what separates "mm-mm!" for people who don't use a glottal stop. — kwami (talk) 16:07, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * (re. ɬɬ) They just have one pulse, but longer duration - they represent something like a past perfect tense (with ɬ being a past tense, among other things). 184.151.231.221 (talk) 04:57, 16 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I would like to point out Shilha language. The phonetic study linked there supports the conclusion that Shilha (and presumably other Berber languages, though apparently except Zenaga and Tuareg, see the table at Proto-Berber language for why I strongly suspect they're exceptions), too, has words and syllables which are phonologically entirely devoid of vowels – even if schwa-like elements (i. e., non-phonemic epenthetic vowels – or vocoids, as they call them) tend to appear automatically under certain (predictable) circumstances. The study explains that clusters like /ts/ (without excrescent vocoid separating the consonants) or /tr/ (phonetically [tər], i. e., with a vocoid) are treated as a light syllable in Shilha, i. e. with /s/ or /r/ as nucleus, but I'm not sure about sequences of stops. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Nuxalk vs Nuxalkmc
What is needed to justify changing the term from Nuxalk to Nuxalkmc? I'm asking because when I made those changes, the page was reverted; it's only a very minor, fine point of contention on my part, but one that i'd be interested in arguing.

I knew that I didn't have any references or specifics to cite when I was actually making the changes, so I kinda thot that it was going to be challenged.

I'm not a linguist or a professional in the field(nor did I know how to readily put into words on the page itself the reasons behind the changes I made), so I will agree that it doesn't strictly mean the same thing(I argued that the suffix "-mc" meant "from" to justify changing "Nuxalk language" to "Nuxalkmc language" in the "describe changes" section of this page, but that was mostly due to limited space in the tag-line).

I only know that I am of Nuxalkmc heritage and have grown up in Bella Coola/Nuxalk Nation, and that the connotation today is for the word "Nuxalkmc" to be used in the same way as "English" or "French" or "Chinese", and to my mind it makes the difference between "French Fries" and "France Fries", or "Chinese Food" and "China Food"...or to put it in direct context to this post: "I am from England, I am English and I speak English" vs. "I am from Nuxalk, I am Nuxalkmc and I speak Nuxalkmc", etc.

Or, to put an even finer point on it, the word for "rainbow" in Nuxalkmc is s'il'ilayc, which translates directly as "something that goes round in a ring"(or something to that effect); now, should such an entry ignore what the term actually means or is used for? Focusing instead on its literal, proper translation? These are among my arguments, and if I am dead-wrong, then so be it, but I'm still interested in pursuing discussion on the matter :D

PS: I don't even know if this post is proper for wikettiquette, so I apologize if it is, but I don't know of any other way to bring up the issue; thanx!

PPS: If it helps, pg.41 of H. F. Nater's A Concise Nuxalk English Dictionary gives the verb "it" meaning "to speak", and the phrase "itnuxalkmc"(emphasis mine) as meaning "to speak Nuxalk", as well as "it'Atlsmc" as "to speak Chilcotin"...both with the connotation that it is the language they are speaking from the area/people/whatever(as in English comes from England, Chinese comes from China, etc). Malestrom (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I moved this to the end of the talk page, to make it in chrono order  Chzz  ► 00:12, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * This is actually a great argument for reverting to the English exonym, Bella Coola. Nuxálk (language) isn't correct, and Nuxalkmc is completely at odds with English phonology. Common sense needs to trump "political correctness" here. Lesson: Don't expect speakers of European languages to twist their tongues trying to pronounce a foreign name the native way. Just let them use the exonyms. You know, like nobody says langue française or deutsche Sprache in an English context, they simply say French language and English language. By insisting on the native endonym (and other such nonsense, such as impeding science for petty ethnocentric reasons and nationalist fervour), you essentially sabotage your own cause: Rather than increasing respect, you diminish it, by implying your language is irredeemably exotic and foreigners would rather have your language (perhaps even ethnic group) disappear to get rid of the annoyance or problem. Civilised language have exonyms. Only fanatic semi-savages insist on "politically correct" native designations counter to all reason. You are doing yourself, your ethnic group, your culture and your language a great disservice by annoying foreigners with such requirements, and even discriminating against them because they have simply never learned to pronounce the sounds and clusters needed for something like [sqʷχʷuʔməʃ]. Even as a trained linguist and phonetician, I struggle mightily trying to pronounce that. Nuxalkmc is not much easier. To derive the pronunciation from the spelling is also everything but straightforward. I cannot even spell Sḵwx̱wú7mesh in principle: my keyboard doesn't have a way to type all the necessary diacritics (the German Mac layout has a lot of extra characters and diacritics), and even finding them in the character map and combining them with the characters is a challenge. Don't ask me to remember either pronunciation or spelling. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:12, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
 * If I insisted that my surname be spelled according to the original Czech orthography, Blažek, and my first name be declined according to Latin grammar, people would laugh at me and tell me to sod off, and they would be totally right. It would just me being a dick, not a putative right not to be discriminated against and to have one's heritage respected. Even a famous person such as Prince could not get people to refer to him by a cumbersome unpronounceable symbol that required a custom font to print – and guess what? It's not part of Unicode, either. Prince was just being a diva expecting that the world succumb to his whims. This case is no different.
 * Know what? Squamish language and Lillooet language have been moved (back) to the easily-pronounced English exonyms. By a linguist and admin, no less, in the second case; in the first case after a requested move discussion. They don't like unnecessary, arbitrary and gratuitous hassle, either. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:13, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
 * "arbitrary and gratuitous hassle" LOL you crack me up Florian, this is two years later now. Lillooet poeple has been reverted (by RM) back to St'at'imc and though I haven't filed an RM for the language yet, there's a good case why St'at'imcets, which is current in English (not in your part of the world no doubt, but definitely in BC) should be the title of that article.  WP:NCLANG was written by the perpetrator of those moves, but is in conflict with WP:Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes) and, too often, with WP:TWODABS, and also with various passages in WP:UCN that provide exceptions that COMMONNAME and RS jackboot-enforcers never seem to have ever bother reading.Skookum1 (talk) 01:21, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Wow, I'm impressed, that RM had three whole "votes" including the nominator, and was closed in a week only, like too many controversial RMs where more discussion was needed. Bad example; true "Skwxwu7mesh snichim" is not present in English, and the two RM attempts to revert Squamish people to Skwxwu7mesh have failed, but the CFd on Category:Squamish people is ongoing and the "How the people refer to themselves should be considered.  If a term is common in English [doesn't say "most common"], then it should be the title" in the ethnicities and tribes naming convention seems to be lost on you linguists, who too often say "wikipedia doesn't care what they call themselves" and who continue to assert archaic names based on RS from times past or other countries, without taking into account the realities of Canadian English and its across-the-board acceptance of native endonyms.  "Get with the times" and stop using old sources to back up colonialist-era names.Skookum1 (talk) 01:30, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * What's with the the á instead of an a in Nuxalk? I've been living in Bella Coola for 3 months now working documenting the language, and this is the first time I've seen any sort of an accent used in the name. Anywhere. Secondly - at least in this region, Nuxalk seems to have become the exonym for the language, so the argument that we should revert to the English "Bella Coola" wouldn't actually be holding true for the English that is spoken in the region where the Nuxalk language is spoken.  Just a thought.  It is written as Nuxalk, but pronounced with an h rather than /X/. 184.151.231.221 (talk) 05:08, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * the accent is what's used in their formal orthography for their language, as far as I understand it. And Swanton says that Nuhalk was the name of the Bella Coola Valley.  And re using their chosen endonym as on [http: //www.nuxalk.net their website] see WP:ETHNICGROUPS about using the nativepreferred term.....are you saying that the FN people of the Bella Coola Valley don't use Nuxalk for themselves but call themselves the "Bella Coola people"?  Seems a stretch but then you're on-site and I'm not.  The MOSTCOMMON use of "Bella Coola" in BC is for the town, of course.Skookum1 (talk) 06:19, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay, I can set the one thing straight - there aren't any accents used in the formal orthography anywhere. I was responding to Florian Blaschke's call that Nuxalk be replaced with "Bella Coola" - I may have gotten endonym and exonym mixed up, what I was trying to say is that the FN people here do use Nuxalk for themselves, them and everyone else here, so any argument that we should switch to "Bella Coola" based on that this is the more common term would be incorrect reasoning, as Nuxalk is the common term everywhere here, for both the people and the language, by both FN and not. While Bella Coola could be argued to be better, since not all the families here are "Nuxalkmc" from Nuxalk (the valley), and are in fact from Kimsquit, South Bentinck, Tallio, Stuic, and so on, it seems that the "Nuxalk" has become the de-facto group term. Note that I made the previous comment while not logged in. Muskwatch (talk) 08:27, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Totally agree, Florian B was out of line with that comment; see WP:Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes) about using the terms preferred by the peoples themselves, though that is about peoples and not their languages; WP:NCLANG}] is what was used to justify this, but similar to Florian B, it was written by an amateur linguist-cum-admin who "has an agenda", an agenda which includes anglicizing terms he doesn't think are present in English. "Bella Coola" is hopelessly out of date and like you, as a British Columbian, I know that "Nuxalk" is now the common term and in regular use in English.  Too many Wikipedians only look at their own bookshelves and from the narrow view of their own field; the dismissive attitude towards what terms the peoples they write about "we don't have to care what they want" is contrary to the ethnicities and tribes guideline I just linked, but getting them to admit to that is another matter.  So long as older [[WP:RS are included, yes, the archaic term "Bella Coola" valley can be said to be more common; but if results, particularly news results, are limited to post-1980s, it's clear what the most common use in English is.  I'm curious about the lack of an accent on Nuxalk locally; isn't that on Nuxalk.net?  Any such use of accents is rarely seen in English e.g. when a news item about these people is in the Vancouver Sun.Skookum1 (talk) 01:21, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * How can I remove the accent in Nuxálk? I can't seem to find where it is displayed. 184.151.231.2 (talk) 21:16, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
 * In the text, just substitute an 'a' for it; for the title that's going to take a WP:Requested move, which can be an arduous process and people only familiar with older sources or the older usage might kibbitz for a change to Bella Coola language, claiming that "global usage" outweigh the modern Canadian norms (which is rubbish and actually not born out by sources if they're limited to more recent ones). You'd think it could be a 'technical request' to fix the spelling, but there's people who would claim that is "controversial" and would demand an RM; so they can make a controversy up and force the older name onto this article.Skookum1 (talk) 01:32, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Written form
This article makes no mention of written Nuxálk. Does it have a written form? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.197.54.33 (talk) 00:09, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Diacritic in Title?
Hey, I'm a bit confused why the title for this page is Nuxálk, instead of Nuxalk (without the diacritic.) The name of the language in the text, in the references, and in any reference I've seen to this language has been without an accent there. Why is there one in the title? Umimmak (talk) 00:26, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There seems to be a consensus for removing it, but noone has filed a request to move the article to Nuxalk language yet.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:18, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Myself I never filed an RM to remove the accent, because of the hassle of fielding a WP:LANGUAGE RM to correct the parallel language articles to all the endonyms that Kwami BOLD-moved at the same time, adding "people" to endonym titles and throwing back titles to linguistics usages and denouncing the native names as "not English" (though they are normal accepted English in Canada) e.g. the corresponding language page for the St'at'imc is Lillooet language; it had been at St'at'imcets for a very long time; Wuikyala was moved to a version of Oowekyala dialect (which has unnecessary disambiguation and is a now out-of-date spelling) even though the people-article is Wuikinuxv, which like the others took an RM to fix, like dozens of others. Adding unnecessary disambiguation to language titles like Halkomelem language and Oowekyala dialect gets even more curious in the backpages of NCL-related discussions on NCP that "dialect" is often considered offensive and should be avoided; that comment was in fact made by Kwami himself, who then ignored it and BOLD moved lots of that kind to add "dialect" when the people themselves regard what they speak as a language.


 * There are many inconsistency of titles out there, caused by a combination of BOLD moves the intransigence experienced re the endonym RMs and certain earlier CFDs, such as the one that removed the accent from the Nuxalk article/category, and the accents and special characters from Category:St'at'imc and Category:Sto:lo....this inconsistency between correct modern usages and the preferences of linguistics publications is rife in a lot of native language titles.....as the endonyms were restored, and I was accused of massive undiscussed moves which were actually RMs required because of someone else's bulk BOLD moves, so much hassle and insult came at me for that series of RMs I've had no taste for more of the same bullshit so haven't fielded certain RMs on the language titles. The corresponding language article for Tsuu Tina, for example, is Sarcee language even though cites already on that page from even 100 years ago say it ("Sarcee") is offensive to the Tsuu Tina; it does after all mean "bad ones"; Coast Tsimshian language is commonly named in the press and modern books now by Sm'algyax the same way that Kwak'wala and Halkomelem and its variants are regular occurrences in English, Canadian English anyway (if not in Alberta, where Kwami lives), rather than Kwakiutl language, which Kwami would prefer, and Fraser River Coast Salish language which is the "old" name.  Nlaka'pamux was restored from the arch-colonialist Thompson people, but the language article moved at the same time, from Nlakapmuctsin or whatever spelling of that, was not RMd back; similarly Ktunaxa was moved back from "Kutenai people" but Ktunahan, the name of the language which is also used in English (as is Ktunaxa) is at Kutenai language instead of its native name.....Secwemptsin remains at Kwami's moved-to Shuswap language even though the main people article was RMd back to where it belongs at Secwepemc. Dakelh was finally restored after Kwami moved it to Carrier people but Carrier language remains "stuck in time".


 * These examples do not involve the accent situation here, though former diacritical titles did (undiacriticalized versions of e.g. St'at'imcets are current in English, though in St'at'imcets itself they're complicated, same with Sto:lo). In this case, the precedent to remove the accent is there; the CfD about the accent on the category; it was me who split Nuxalk off from the government-article Nuxalk Nation and so that's why the people article doesn't have the accent; I used the English spelling, rather than the Nuxalk one....and on the Nuxalk talkpage someone from there  says he's never seen it with the accent, which must be an affectation of the linguistics crowd as the Nuxalk don't use it themselves as seen on the Nuxalk Saymusta page.  'Nuff said, provided that Maunus doesn't want to vote against something just because I support it, I don't think an RM to remove this accent will have all that much trouble if someone will support it.  Chipewyan people's RMs got shot down (the earlier article had been Denesuline) but the needless people-dab was removed by an admin in the time since without an RM.....so possibly this doesn't have to need a formal RM given the category and main article titles and the CFD on the category as precedent/rationale.Skookum1 (talk) 04:55, 31 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I've made the request to delete the redirect at Nuxalk language and move the page there. Any admin can do this.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 05:07, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Page Move
This page was moved from Nuxalk to Bella Coola based on a reference to the English-first practice of the First Peoples' Cultural Council, but on their very own website, First Voices, the FPCC (joining the practice of many other First Nations sources, including the Nuxalk Nation themselves) refer to the language in English only as Nuxalk. While historically linguists have used the name Bella Coola, in English and Nuxalk usage today, the term Nuxalk is now paramount and the continuation of Bella Coola on Wikipedia is out of date, analogous to insisting on referring to the Khoekhoe language as Hottentot. The page should be moved back. TheLateDentarthurdent (talk) 16:30, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

The Pronunciation /ˈnuːhɒlk/
Why does the phonetic transcription of the name have stress on the first syllable? Isn't it on the second syllable?

"In certain environments there is, however, little variation concerning the place of stress: (a) it usually falls on the last V in the position -T#" (Nater 1979 "Bella Coola phonology" Lingua 49:169-187)

"Typically, stress falls on the last vowel (= syllabic sonorant) of a word, provided it is followed by at least one obstruent" (Bagemihl (1991) "Syllable Structure in Bella Coola" LI 22(4):589-646)

There is a citation to Bauer (2007) The Linguistic Student's Handbook, but this book does not provide any pronunciation for the name "Nuxalk"; it does provide a pronunciation for the name "Bella Coola", namely /ˈbelə ˈkuːlə/, which differs from the current pronunciation in the article: /ˈbɛlə ˈkuːlə/. Why is this work being cited for a pronunciation it doesn't have? I'm adding a citation needed. 24.87.208.217 (talk) 22:08, 5 November 2015 (UTC)


 * As someone who lives here, Nuxalk definitely has the stress on the first syllable these days. At times when speaking Nuxalk, I do stress it on the second syllable, but since the word is primarily used in English by most people, the accent tends to shift as well. Either way there is quite a bit of variation regarding stress, in most cases it's not in stone. Muskwatch (talk) 19:47, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Ambiguous example of Passive Causative paradigm
nuyamł-tus ti-ʔimlk-tx ti-ʔimmllkī-tx 'the man made/let the boy sing'/'the man sang for the boy' appears to provide two opposite meanings. Who is singing? The man or the boy? Would this correctly be:

nuyamł-tus/ti-ʔimlk-tx/ti-ʔimmllkī-tx 'the man made the boy sing'/'the man let the boy sing'/'the man sang for the boy'

Thisisnotatest (talk) 00:16, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive {newarchive} to http://citizenshift.org/tags/bella-coola

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Three phonemic vowels, not one
The article contradicted itself. First it said that Nater proposed that /m̩, n̩, l̩/ are separate phonemes from non-syllabic /m, n, l/. Observing that /i, u/ could similarly be considered the syllabic counterparts of the non-syllabic /j, w/, it then suddenly turned around and claimed Nater's analysis leaves Nuxalk with a single phonemic vowel because /i, u/ turn out to be /j, w/. But if syllabic and non-syllabic sonorants are separate phonemes, then /i, u/ are separate phonemes from /j, w/, too! You could transcribe /i, u/ as /j̩, w̩/ to emphasize this pairing of phonemes, but that wouldn't change the fact that they're vowels.

It's common for languages to have phonemes that can be arranged in pairs (or triplets or quadruplets): long and short vowels, long and short consonants, voiced and voiceless obstruents, you name it. That doesn't mean such pairs are a single phoneme! The distinguishing feature is phonemic.

Because a phonemic contrast between syllabic and non-syllabic consonants (which my kinds of German both have) is a much less surprising claim than the only language with a single phonemic vowel would be, I've gone ahead and changed the article.

David Marjanović (talk) 10:39, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

unlabialized velar obstruents
I was wondering, if the unlabialized velar obstruents are [k, k' & x^ʲ] as given in the orthography, or [c, c' & ç], as given in the phonology section. I could not find firsthand sources online, but would it not disqualify discombobulation by readers over which phonemes they were, if one version were to be upheld in both sections? If they are allophones or in free variation, could this be noted? Thanks.ARCHEologe (talk) 18:24, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Switching portions to Nuxalk Orthography
At some point, my hundreds of students of the Nuxalk language are going to come to Wikipedia, are going to see a big description of their language on this page, and won't be able to read a thing as it's all IPA. I look at other language pages, and while there is of course IPA during the descriptions of the sounds in the language, once you get into the grammar everything is done in the language's orthography. What are the guidelines about this? Muskwatch (talk) 19:51, 15 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Did this question/issue get resolved in a useful way?
 * I personally can't imagine a problem with having most of the Nuxalk in the article spelled the way it's normally spelled, as long as the pronunciation guide is kept in IPA so that (nerdy) people who don't know the language have a way in. TooManyFingers (talk) 04:04, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Shouting? Singing?
From the very strong prevalence of consonants in Nuxalk, it seems to me as if it might be physically difficult to shout or sing in this language (or severely limit one's choice of words while doing so). Is there any truth in this, or is it just a matter of familiarity and practice?

(Perhaps this article overemphasizes the consonant-heavy words because they're a very distinctive feature.) TooManyFingers (talk) 03:51, 27 September 2023 (UTC)