Talk:Valyrian languages/Archive 1

High Valyrian

 * Copied from User talk:Sandstein

Thank you for spotting all the bits I've been stupidly overlooking ;o) — OwenBlacker (Talk) 19:14, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks to you for adding all the complicated-looking linguistic content, I wouldn't know where to begin :-)  Sandstein   19:25, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * No problem; the constructed languages are one (well, three) of the many things I like about Game of Thrones, so I follow the blogs and articles about them. Were I to spend more time getting my head round the languages, I could probably expand the language samples better too, but that's not something I can do whilst watching TV at the same time ;o)
 * I'm not entirely convinced that the speculation I put into the article would fall foul of WP:NOR or WP:V, though, given David J. Peterson has effectively endorsed the speculation, which is why I added it; d'you not think that's verification enough, given the wording of my addition? — OwenBlacker (Talk) 10:01, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
 * PS: Could you throw a Talkback link onto my Talk: page when you reply, please? I'm not very good at keeping on top of my watchlist ;o) Thanks!
 * Well, per WP:V, we must "base articles on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Basing content on messages by random internet users in the comments section of a blog post is ... not quite up to that standard. Per WP:BLOGS, we may in a pinch use Peterson's own posts because they are "produced by an established expert on the subject matter", but, in my view, comments by anybody else should be off limits. That's especially so if they are speculative, as per WP:BALL, "Wikipedia is not a collection of unverifiable speculation". Given that Peterson's response to the speculation was "Very, very much on the right track, but not 100%", it's probably better to wait on more reliable sources.  Sandstein   13:04, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I can definitely see your point, but my interpretation of Peterson's response was that it rendered the information accurate enough for inclusion. I'm just as happy to wait until Peterson clarifies the matter himself, though, as I imagine he's likely to do so before the current series ends :o) — OwenBlacker (Talk) 13:16, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
 * As the originator of said speculation (I post at dothraki.com under the name "Mad Latinist") I'm inclined to agree with Sandstein on this one: my guesses as to the forms of those words were just that: guesses. When David J. Peterson said "Very, very much on the right track, but not 100%. But yes, you’re on the right track there!" he was speaking of Zhalio's more general theory, not my speculative reconstructions of the paradigmatic nouns—and even then he didn't completely endorse it. But thanks for your endorsement ;) --Iustinus (talk) 05:17, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Aha, hello Mr Mad Latinist! I thoroughly enjoy your posts on Dothraki.com :o) Yes, I can see what you mean. It makes sense to wait until David Peterson posts in more detail. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 12:07, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Problematic article
It seems that most of the information on Valyrian comes from a site personally run by David Petersen. While it is certainly permissible to use blogs as a source at times, WP:BLOG says "Take care when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else will probably have done so." The argument Sandstein seems to be making is that Valyrian has some notability, so therefore everything about it must be included and we are free to import material wholesale from blog comments. I think this is a rather flimsy argument. This is a well-written page, though! Hermione is a dude (talk) 05:13, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I think, at this early stage of the language's existence, it's unlikely that anyone else will publish any real quantity of information about the language and its grammar. I would guess, though, that there might be more information in a couple of years, if HBO decide there'd be a market for books on their created languages. I don't think it's a big problem to have such an extensive article, though. The language itself is definitely notable and we don't have a finite capacity; removing the reliance on primary sources is something we can do when there are better sources, to my mind. Thank you for the compliment, though — I'm one of a handful of people who've done all the work on this piece and I'm certainly pretty pleased with it :o) — OwenBlacker (Talk)
 * I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble resolving the contradiction between your two statements "it's unlikely that anyone else will publish any real quantity of information about the language and its grammar" and "the language itself is definitely notable". Could you please explain how the second statement can be true in light of the first statement, keeping in mind that notability as we define it is predicated upon extensive coverage in multiple reliable sources independent of the subject? —Psychonaut (talk) 15:44, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The language gets a fair amount of coverage in independent reliable sources (eg Time, New York, CNN, all referenced in the article), but it is a work for hire for HBO so, unless they decide to publish books about the language (equivalent to The Klingon Dictionary, for example), noone is able to publish books about the details of the language and grammar. I don't think those two statements are inherently a contradiction. Also, as the language is still very new; it's still too soon for there to be much scholarly analysis of the language, though I don't see why that wouldn't change with time. If we accept that the language itself is notable, then the content sourced from Peterson's blog is legitimate, as "notability guidelines do not limit content within an article" — OwenBlacker (Talk) 09:03, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed.  Sandstein   09:09, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It's unlikely that the CNN article can be considered an independent source, as it's written by the creator of the language. Nonetheless I accept the points you've made. —Psychonaut (talk) 09:19, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * You're right about the CNN piece, of course. When seeking to defend something, I should probably wait until I've woken up better before posting ;o) Thank you, though.— OwenBlacker (Talk) 11:25, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Technical issue with ⟨
The character "⟨" that is used, e.g., in the "notes" to the phonology tables, renders correctly in Internet Explorer (it looks similar to "<"), but it renders as a square box in Chrome. Is there a way to fix that, or to use another character?  Sandstein  09:08, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * This is an issue with your browser or operating system configuration, not with Wikipedia. Your version of Chrome is failing to find an appropriate fallback font to display the character in question.  This might be because you are running an older, buggy version of Chrome (in which case, you should update), or it could be because of a font rendering bug in a third-party library used by Chrome, such as the one described in Chrome Issue 113777 (in which case your only options are to wait until the bug is fixed, or else reconfigure Chrome and/or your Wikipedia default skin such that it uses a font which contains this character).  If you're interested in technical details on the general problem, see this Super User question.  —Psychonaut (talk) 09:39, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks! My Chrome is up to date, so I assume it's the font substitution problem. That being so, it's likely that many users have same problem, so could we use an alternate form of bracket that is at a slightly less exotic Unicode location?  Sandstein   10:40, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Many users may indeed be having the same problem, but not necessarily with the same glyph. It all depends on their browser's font handling capabilities, their browser's configuration, which skin they've selected, which fonts they have installed, and which operating system they're running (not all of which are independent variables).  Substituting '⟨' for some other glyph might work for you, but might introduce a new problem for someone else.  And besides which, this would introduce non-standard notation; in linguistics '⟨⟩' are always used to enclose written letter forms.  (Many similar looking symbols are already assigned a distinct meaning in linguistics—'<', for example, is used to denote etymological descent.)  Perhaps you could experiment with the IPA template to see if using that solves the problem for you.  If not, and you still feel the problem with your browser is widespread enough to warrant a workaround here, then this should be done on a site-wide basis, not just on this article.  In that case you should probably raise the issue with WikiProject Linguistics who can work on crafting a stylistic or technical solution. —Psychonaut (talk) 11:32, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the comprehensive response, I'll consider that.  Sandstein   16:41, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

loss of rounded front vowel

 * The rounded vowels 〈ȳ〉 and 〈y〉 may not be pronounced in modern High Valyrian, as a non-native or prestige language and did not survive into the descendant languages.

As it stands, this sentence makes no obvious sense. Maybe all it needs is a comma after 'language', but for greater clarity I'd suggest something like this:


 * The rounded vowels 〈ȳ〉 and 〈y〉 of High Valyrian lost their rounding in the descendant languages, and so tend to be pronounced as unrounded front vowels when High Valyrian is used as a second language.

—Tamfang (talk) 06:58, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Misunderstanding of the instrumental/comitative merger

 * Whereas instrumental forms are generally listed as containing -s- or -ss- and comitative forms generally contain -m- or -mm-, some nouns use only the s-forms in both cases and some nouns use the m-forms for both. When this occurs, the consonant in question experiences consonant harmony, causing the use of what might otherwise be a comitative form for an instrumental and vice versa, where the forms appear to be instrumental ("by means of the ... men", "by means of the ... rains"), despite being comitative ("accompanying the ... man", "accompanying the ... rains").
 * This is a misunderstanding. Actually the examples provided use the instrumental and it's noteworthy that "vala" does indeed have an instrumental/comitative distinction which the adjective would have followed. So in this case the example: "ēlios valosa" and so on actually mean "by means of the man" and are instrumental, not comitative. In the case of daomio (the rains) both merge and we can't be sure which one is intended if not from context. This should be corrected right away.Najahho 18:53, 5 February 2014 (UTC)