User talk:Esperfulmo/Archive 1

Welcome!

Hello, Mahmudmasri, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! - Ghaly (talk) 19:39, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
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Masry

 * Dear Dudi, I am aware of the problems on the article but i can not protect it as I am not a sysop on English wikipedia , you can ask one of the sysops here for protecting the article. Ghaly (talk) 18:59, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Link to '1955' and '1987' in Lojban
Hi,

The guidance at Overlink says:
 * ''Chronological items such as days, years, centuries and so on should generally not be linked, except in articles on other chronological items or related topics

I hope that helps. Lightmouse (talk) 09:33, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Yazidi
Please remember to mark your edits as minor if (and only if) they genuinely are minor edits (see Help:Minor edit). Marking a major change as a minor one is considered poor etiquette. The rule of thumb is that only an edit that consists solely of spelling corrections, formatting changes, or rearranging of text without modifying content should be flagged as a 'minor edit.'  Vidkun (talk) 01:24, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

ipa
Phonology was never my strong suit. More of a syntax guy. You're right, but it looks like it's not a problem on the page where it is explained in 2 different ways. There are certainly English dialects where final s after liquids does not become voiced, but I grant the voiced sibilant is more prevalent than the unvoiced fricative. Cheers --Ioscius (talk) 11:36, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

East Timor is a secular state even if the word "secular" is not mentioned. East Timor should be added to the list and map of secular states.
According to the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of East Timor:

Section 12 (Relationship between the State and religious denominations)

1. There shall be no official religion of the State.

2. The State shall respect the different religious denominations, which are free in their organisation and in the exercise of their own activities, to take place in due observance of the Constitution and the law.

3. The State shall promote the cooperation with the different religious denominations that contribute to the well-being of the people of East Timor.

4. The religious denominations have the right to possess and to acquire assets for the achievement of their objectives.

The first paragraph of section 12 of the East Timorese Constitution which forbids the establishment of an official religion of the State, and the second, third and fourth paragraphs of section 12 which correspond with the arguement that "A secular state is a concept of secularism, whereby a state or country purports to be officially neutral in matters of religion, supporting neither religion nor irreligion.", perfectly shows that the state of East Timor is secular. The lack of the word "secular" in a constitution does not always and automatically apply that a state is not secular. The content of section 12 of the East Timorese Constitution definately proves it otherwise. Therefore East Timor should be added to the list and map of secular states.

See:eastimorlawjournal.org Constitution of the Democratic Republic of East Timor —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.104.211.39 (talk) 21:52, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

IPA spacing problem on Firefox 3.6 operated on Windows 7

 * Please, help me! I have an extremely irritating problem displaying IPA joining character on Firefox 3.6 using Windows 7. For example this appears to me as /ġedo/. I could only fix the problem by choosing a default font for firefox from (Tools>Options...>Content>Advanced>Western>Sans-serif>"Lucida Sans Unicode") or Segoe UI or other fonts.
 * What irritates me is that with the previous settings on Windows XP I have never experienced the painful bug. Additionally, Tahoma is the best font I have ever seen that can display most scripts all together, including Arabic script. It distinguishes capital I from small l, unlike Lucida Sans Unicode for example or any other unicode font. Segoe UI seems to be barely acceptable, but I can't accept that it shows the italic a as if it were ɑ. That makes me crazy, because these characters represent different phonemes in IPA. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 02:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I responded to your query on my talk page. (I also tried Lucida Sans Unicode, by the way, but it didn't solve the problem.  I think Unicode has progressed beyond what Lucida Sans supports.) Elphion (talk) 03:12, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

հայերէն հայերէն  հայերէն հայերէն

The map of secular states is incorrect.
England, Iceland, Moldavia, Greece, Cyprus, Argentina, Slovakia and Thailand are not secular states. Source:

And why is the whole UK shown as a secular state? The Church of England, which is the established church of England. Only Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are secular inside the UK.

East Timor is a secular state according to Section 45 of the East Timorese constitution, which stipulates the separation of religion from the state. Source: East Timor Constitution Section 45 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.224.107.107 (talk) 21:52, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

RfD nomination of Lmo.wikipedia.org
I have nominated for discussion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:34, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: Hebrew template
Hi Mahmudmasri!

About the font size: 125% already got some criticism because people felt it was too large. Keep in mind that this template is meant to be used inline, and look good alongside 100%-sized English text.

About font ordering: Sorry, I must've missed the edit. In any case, I never really understood why Lucida Grande was there, but don't think there's any reason to have SBL Hebrew either—it's an esoteric font that you can't expect users to have installed. The issue is not that important however, because most people will just have David.

Cheers, —Ynhockey (Talk) 01:32, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Hello
Sorry brother, it is not your wikipedia here to make it whatever the way you want. Here, we have rules and every body must abide them. If you want to add something, first you need a credible source and not to mention your facts have to make sense. However, if you want the articles to be the way you want, this place is not the right place for you to do so, do that in your wikipedia masri. I hope you understand that. --Vb4ever (talk) 01:55, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Would you please stop altering the sourced information in Egyptian Arabic article? --Mahmudmasri (talk) 22:15, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Because you had a source in this edit, it was OK. But, where was your source to remove the sourced info there ? I know the rules very well, so as I know that I own nothing. No offense, thanks. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 02:14, 26 May 2010 (UTC)


 * User:Vb4ever and User:Mahmudmasri, please discuss the matter and stop the edit war. A new section is now opened in the article's talk page, please refer to it before further reverting. thanks, Maysara (talk) 22:26, 26 May 2010 (UTC)


 * There is no debate. He doesn't debate anything before removing or adding. How come he removes a referenced statement! Am I the one who is edit-warring here? Reverting the edits of his removal or altering data without adding reference. If he had another claim, he could have added it with a reference (at least add it without a reference), but not remove the referenced claim. I honestly don't see it logical that a few foreigners coming to Egypt might be able to influence the Egyptians' spoken language hugely or influencing it at all! But, the statement is referenced, if someone had something else to say, he has to write it down with the reference, or add it without removing the referenced claim. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 22:45, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Additionally, the statement didn't claim that it is the only reason, however, it could be edited at the end of the sentence to be: “[...] which might have had an effect for some of the unique characteristics of the Egyptian variety.” but not remove the whole statement! See Vb4ever history I sent him a message explaining not to alter data, then he removed my comment. See the family of the language, it was removed. How come if I reverted that edit, I'd be accused as edit-warring! --Mahmudmasri (talk) 22:52, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

RE: File:Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_Clean.ogg
I didn't record that sound file. Someone else had recorded it and put it on the page, but the file they uploaded had several seconds of static at the beginning and end; I just cut out the static and uploaded that. Some guy (talk) 01:58, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Your Digital Radio Questions.
This is a post to let you know that I have answered your questions on my talk page. Thanks for asking! --milonica (talk) 08:20, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Digital Broadcasting Technologies
Hi Milonica. I'm someone from Egypt & I'm interested to know about digital broadcasting technologies. I saw comments of yours at talk:CAM-D. I read on your page that you are in WikiProject Radio, so as you are interested in DXing. I read a lot about digital radio broadcasting technologies (HD Radio - FMeXtra - CAM-D ... & others), but wanted to take a word of a mouth. I wanted to ask you: We have no terrestrial digital radio broadcasting in Egypt, so I was wondering how does it look like. Thanks in advance :) --Mahmudmasri (talk) 04:41, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Does the regular person (in America) know about digital radio broadcasting?
 * 2) Does the general public seem to care about these technologies?
 * 3) Are digital radio broadcasting technologies used widely?
 * 4) Do you find digital radio broadcasting more robust?
 * 5) Could they be received further than analog?
 * 6) Do these technologies really sound better in quality?
 * 7) Do you care to use any of these technologies?
 * 8) What technology do you prefer from all of digital radio broadcasting technologies?

Answer
To answer your questions:
 * 1)Hard to say, most people probably hear the ads for HD Radio but it doesn't seem like people know much about it.
 * 2)HD Radio hasn't seen very much adoption by consumers. People just don't seem to care that they can hear new stations.
 * 3)On FM yes, AM (Mediumwave) not so much. There are over 1400 FM stations in the US broadcasting HD Radio.
 * 4)No, HD Radio has many flaws and suffers from poor range compared to its analog counterpart. The audio benefits are negligible on FM, but noticeable on AM.
 * 5)No, as I said above, HD Radio suffers from poorer range, and where the analog can't be received, the HD signal can't be received.
 * 6)As I've mentioned, the audio quality on FM is really hard to notice a difference. On AM, HD Radio sounds close to FM, but depending on the station, the audio sounds compressed, and has digital artifacts. FM suffers from the same thing when the station has more than one stream (i.e. HD2, 3 etc).
 * 7) I do have an HD Radio, and the only thing I can say is it does make identifying DX stations a lot easier, but the benefits don't outweigh the reason to have an HD Radio in the first place. There just isn't much new content to really care.
 * 8) I've only heard DRM and HD Radio and between the two, I like how DRM sounds. AM Stereo (if it hadn't have died) would have helped AM here in the states a great bit. HD Radio just doesn't make sense on AM, but FM its "just okay," nothing spectacular. I prefer analog in the long run.

If there is a way, I would encourage you to tell the Egypt government not to accept HD Radio (Ibiquity) should they choose to select a digital system. I'd let them know to go with DRM or the better equivalent. Hope this helps! --milonica (talk) 08:19, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much, Milonica. Your reply couldn't be more helpful :) I also suspected the bizarre propagandist claims that digital radio is supposed to achieve. It doesn't seem sane that 100 kbps (even in AAC+) would do better than the analog stereo FM. It should be not less than 192 kbps to really feel persuaded to migrate to digital. Not to mention the poorer range.
 * Most probably if a digital radio broadcasting system would be used in Egypt, it would not be in the near future & would be the same as used in Europe, because that site claims that Egypt is planning to use DVB/T the same system used in Europe, so I suppose that if digital radio would be used in the far future in Egypt, the European standard would be used. Just as 625 lines was (SECAM, then migrating to PAL in 1992) chosen as the standard for analog TV, as in Europe. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 08:47, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Grab some glory, and a barnstar
Hi, I'd like to invite you to participate in the Guild of Copy Editors July 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive. In May, about 30 editors helped remove the tag from 1175 articles. The backlog is still over 7500 articles, and extends back to the beginning of 2008! We really need your help to reduce it. Copyediting just a couple articles can qualify you for a barnstar. Serious copyeditors can win prestigious and exclusive rewards. See the event page for more information. And thanks for your consideration. mo no so ck  04:57, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

i dont quite understand
Cheers mate, i noticed that youv sent me a post that i need to respond to your post, i believe i did.. ?? not sure what you mean really... cheers :) Arab League User (talk) 01:13, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Template
I reverted your edit to Template:Hebrew Name, because we ended up with one closing tag too much. Please feel free to try again. Debresser (talk) 13:35, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for expanding the article on Egyptian Arabic significantly!
I'm just sending you this message to show my appreciation for your efforts in expanding the article on Egyptian Arabic. I remember reading it a couple of years ago, and your and Benwing's contributions have surprised me. Continue your great work! :D I'll be adding new stuff as well and help finding references to the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neqitan (talk • contribs) 03:02, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

explain your edit`in Egyptian Arabic
i have many warnings by admins currently to revert your last edit in Egyptian Arabic, but could you possibly explain, how is it that over 20 million Egyptians do not speak Egyptian as a native language?? Or are you too going to tell me that Saidi is a different language?! Maysara (talk) 18:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I explained my edits in the edit summary. Review that last edit. People at the south of Egypt do not primarily speak the same speech of people at the north, even if they can speak the northern speech along with their southern speech (Saidi). The number of people who can speak Egyptian vernacular, including native speakers & other non-native speakers, inside or outside of Egypt, may extend to more than the Egyptian population census. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 18:16, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by "speech", because if you mean dialect (which it is) then fine. HUMPH!!! A language is defined primarily by the set of syntactic and morphological rules upon which a variety of sounds may be produced. the phonological difference does not mean that it's a different language. Do you need to learn Saidi in order to understand it? NO! Difference between Saidi and whatever other dialect in Egypt (alex, portsaid and suez, etc.), are merely phonological differences, exactly like these between American and British english, and between the many different American accents! Maysara (talk) 18:48, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks)
You reverted my corrections to the article A-ha. Wikipedia guidelines are clear on this, Trademarks rendered without any capitals are always capitalized, so that means "a-ha" should always be written as "A-ha" on Wikipedia.

I did already provide a link to the relevant guideline WP:MOSTM in my edit summary. Nelson58 (talk) 19:23, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It's OK. I haven't reverted any edits. That rule didn't anyway claim that stage-names of artists/bands mustn't be written in small letters. Have a good day. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 04:53, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

English IPA chart
Could you please cite sources demonstrating that /ɒ/ is the more common pronunciation for the unmerged low-back vowel than /ɔ/? I could cite multiple sources and studies on the cot-caught merger that transcribe the cot and caught vowels with /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ (not dictionaries, and not the least of which the actual Wikipedia article on the low-back vowel merger).--68.212.188.168 (talk) 14:02, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Why instead of arguing with me, if you seemed to be more than sure, you could have just added your references to the page! That was the source, do you have any?

\ ä \ 	as in bother, cot, and, with most American speakers, father, cart. The symbol \ä\ represents the vowel of cot, cod, and the stressed vowel of collar in the speech of those who pronounce this vowel differently from the vowel in caught, cawed, and caller, represented by \o\. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 14:29, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Your source actually proves my point on this. Look up the words "pore" and "paw" on that website, or "sore and "saw". Merriam Webster uses /ȯ/ to represent the vowel in these words, which is /ɔ/.


 * With Merriam Webster's system, /O/ represents the long o, as in /oʊ/ in words like "no" and "beau", which would be /oU/ in SAMPA. Their /ȯ/, is /ɔ/ in IPA, and /O/ in SAMPA, which represents the vowel in saw and sore, /sȯ/ and /sȯr/.


 * Also, observe the SAMPA chart on Wikipedia. /Q/ represents /ɒ/, as in "not" in British English, while /O/ represents /ɔ/ in General American, /ɑ/ in cot-caught merged dialects, and /ɔː/ in RP. --68.212.188.168 (talk) 23:47, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * My IP address has changed. As I have shown, your source, Merriam Webster, backs me up on this. Should I go fix the IPA chart?--72.153.93.230 (talk) 18:59, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Arabic transliteration
Hi there. I noticed this edit and this comment following it, so I thought I'll lay this issue at your feet, and either you address it or know someone who will be willing to. A certain IP editor (62.220.33.64, probably same as 83.149.41.124) has decided to go on a crusade for the usage of the "ALFB NewWay" transliteration of Arabic. You can see from the contributions list that quite a number of edits were made using this transliteration. I have absolutely zero understanding on the subject, just that I got into this because the editor was replacing existing transliterations with his own. I really don't know if this fits consensus in any way, nor have an opinion. I'm just looking for someone who cares, and has some understanding, to take over. Best regards, and happy editing. --Muhandes (talk) 20:12, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

62.220.33.64 (talk)Hello, Mahmudmasri! The text of transliteration after the last edition and the Arabic text (the full name of Rantissi) is different. —Preceding undated comment added 14:02, 28 January 2011 (UTC).

Mubarak
Do you think you could add IPA for Hosni Mubarak? — ʀoyoтϵ 04:23, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, sure. But, sorry for being late, as they were cutting our internet connection in Egypt. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 15:16, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks great. Glad to see it's back! — ʀoyoтϵ 05:55, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Jaꞑalif
New font is available now for unicode 6.0 letters! --Üñţïf̣ļëŗ ( see also: ә? Ә!) 13:07, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Photo request in Egypt
Hey, Mahmud! Are you in Cairo, Egypt?

If so, you may have to wait to do this until your country's political situation stabilizes - Anyway I have a photo request asking for a photo of the en:EgyptAir head office by Cairo Airport. If you decide to do it, please let me know

ǧ for ج
Unfortunately, transliterating Arabic ج as ǧ is really not useful in most contexts in English Wikipedia. The most "classical" modern pronunciation is [dž] (IPA [dʒ]), as in the pan-Arab formal tajwid (recitation) pronunciation, while the MSA pronunciations used in prominent areas of the Arab world other than Egypt tend to use closely related sounds (such as often [ž] in Syria, etc.). So the transliteration ǧ is not compatible with usual English spelling habits or with the IPA, and would appear to have very limited usefulness for most purposes on English Wikipedia... AnonMoos (talk) 10:08, 2 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Regarding the letter ǧ; is DIN 31635 standard transliteration for the Arabic letter ج. We can't just use some of its transliterations and ignore others. If you you find another standard transliteration scheme with one letter to one letter transliteration, please feel free to provide information about it.
 * Using more than one transliteration scheme in the same article is very confusing!
 * Reciting Koran has special pronunciation which differs from how Literary Arabic is used across the whole Arab League and beyond. The letter ج isn't only pronounced as in Egypt, but also occasionally in Yemen and Oman, in Literary Arabic, as well. Koran reciters of Egypt, the Levant and most North Africa, excluding most Algeria, pronounce ج as . So, it's not even, the sound you are referring to.
 * Contrary to what appears to me that you know about Literary Arabic, is only pronounced in most of the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and most of Algeria. Other parts of North Africa, including Sudan, pronounce it as.
 * Regarding the Classical Arabic pronunciation, it used to be, which makes the closest pronunciation :) --Mahmudmasri (talk) 10:40, 2 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Dude, I'm sorry, but ǧ may appear in some semi-esoteric library cataloguing standard, but it's NOT what is used most often by either English-speaking journalists or English-speaking linguists, and it is NOT recommended by Manual of Style (Arabic) -- therefore its utility for English Wikipedia purposes is extremely limited. Its only real advantage is that it suggests Egyptian pronunciation, but Egyptian pronunciation is not generally recognized as being "standard" or "classical" (though moderately influential in some particular contexts).  AnonMoos (talk) 11:19, 2 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The manual of style you gave me is inactive and left for historical reference. Even though, using DIN 31635 doesn't violate it :)
 * Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and encyclopedias must be accurate.
 * ǧ isn't suggesting Egyptian pronunciation. The German Institute for Standardization created DIN 31635 and used ǧ not g representing . Still, is also a standard and a correct pronunciation for ج in Literary Arabic. Looks like you don't know much about Literary Arabic and how it is being taught and used. I have already explained that  is a standard pronunciation. See pluricentric language. Claiming that  for ج isn't standard, is a very ignorant statement! However, that's not the case.
 * In order to pronounce or construct the original word, the reader has to already be knowledgeable, as ā, ī, ū aren't understood by regular English speakers because they are not part of the English alphabet. Arabic script isn't the only script to be transliterated in Wikipedia. Indic, Sinic, Japanese, Cyrillic, Greek and other scripts are also transliterated according to documented standards. Not just made-up transliterations for some personal preferences. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 12:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately for you, DIN 31635 is basically a library-cataloging standard for German-language use, and so has very little relevance to English-language Wikipedia (the fact that DIN stands for "Deutsches Institut für Normung" really doesn't indicate any English Wikipedia relevance, but rather the reverse). And as a matter of fact, I doubt very much whether you would show any interest in it at all, if it didn't happen to make use of a symbol which fits in with your preference for Egyptian pronunciation.  The pronunciation [g] is not an uneducated or illiterate pronunciation -- but it isn't the most prevalent modern standard pronunciation either, nor is it the best classical pan-Arab tajwid pronunciation, and even more importantly, ج is rarely transcribed into written English as "g" except in the case of Egyptian dialect forms.  The page Manual of Style (Arabic) didn't make it to an official policy, but it's a summary of English Wikipedia de facto best practices, and it's very ill-advised for you to try to unilaterally change things based on a German library-cataloguing standard. AnonMoos (talk) 14:42, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Running around in circles

 * Before throwing irresponsible accusation, see Romanization of Arabic.
 * DIN 31635, ISO 233, ISO/R 233, Spanish Arabists School are the only ones to use one-to-one transliteration.
 * DIN 31635, ISO 233 and ISO/R 233 use ǧ to transliterate ج
 * ISO 233 transliterates ا as aʾ 
 * ISO/R 233 transliterates ة as small ''ʰ, ᵗ
 * Spanish Arabists School transliterates آ as ā ignoring the preceding glottal stop, ة pronounced as  as a conflicting with final fatḥah transliteration
 * It is becoming even more apparent that you really don't know about Literary Arabic or what is تجويد.‎ تجويد is the specific set of rules for reciting Koran. Do you know what is Koran?
 * I wrote it “Koran”, not Qurʾān because the word is used in English language and found in dictionaries and there is no confusion about the meaning or the etymology of the word because one would find it easily in dictionaries. But, what about “jumhuriya” and “jamahiriya”? How would such words, which are not used in English language, be understood without confusion if there isn't any possible way to denote its etymology!
 * Are you aware that DIN 31635, and all of those Romanization of Arabic, fail to represent the Egyptian pronunciation for Literary Arabic? It doesn't have i, u short initial or medial vowels; Qurʾān would be in Literary Arabic—Egypt:, while in Literary Arabic—Central Saudi Arabia: and in Literary Arabic—Syria: . I don't have to explain or justify to you again. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 07:33, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

yet again another time once more
Dude: 1) There's no real reason why Wikipedia needs to employ a transliteration scheme which has an absolutely strict 1-1 relationship with Arabic orthography in its fully vowelled form. If there is an argument to be made as to why Wikipedia should do this, you haven't presented it.  2) Formal Qur'an recitation certainly has many differences from more ordinary speech styles, but when it comes to the basic pronunciation of the consonants, tajwid is less remote from MSA than you think. One important part of point of tajwid is to eliminate all local dialectal features of pronunciation (so that it should be the same everywhere), and tajwid thus actually had a significant influence on the development of MSA pronunciation -- as far as the basic pronunciation of the consonants goes -- since MSA also seeks to minimize to some degree local dialectal peculiarities. 3) Most importantly, you really need to go to Wikipedia_talk:Manual of Style (Arabic) and discuss the matter there, instead of wandering around Wikipedia and changing random individual articles to conform with a German-language library-cataloging standard (which has little significant usage among English-speakers), solely because it somewhat coincidentally seems to favor your preferred Egyptian pronunciation. AnonMoos (talk) 16:14, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Ottoman Numerals
There are some sources informing that the Ottoman Turkish also used such numerals, like ۴, ۵, ۶ because Ottoman script has in general big Persian influence (like additional letters and dotless ی). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.220.33.64 (talk) 15:56, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Arab world
Please use WP:RELY references for all contributions to Wikipedia. We do not make "observations." That is what distinguishes us from a blog. Okay to make "observations" in a blog someplace.

Also, that particular "observation", even cited, would go under "Arabic language" if there was such a subsection, not under "Definition of an Arab." Thanks. Student7 (talk) 21:31, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I read your message. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 08:21, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Syriac Scripts templates
Hi, I've been trying to create some templates for different Syriac scripts but I cant just figure out how to use one template for all scripts like how it's done with Nastaliq, somehow the source code doesn't show much. I saw that you helped creating the Nastaliq script, so can you please give me a hand there :). The scripts I created can be found here. Thanks in advance--  R a f y  talk 17:44, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for contacting, however, I haven't contributed in Nastaliq template, but I'll try to see how can I help you with Syriac scripts... --Mahmudmasri (talk) 19:01, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, I don't know any way that would prevent the browsers from choosing wrong fonts. The first reason is because the code inside all of the templates have this tag     so the browser would choose the system default font for Syriac script instead of the font chosen, because it's unlikely that the operating system would have that specific font. The second reason is, people like me might have their own CSS page, such as that which could contain a specific font for   . --Mahmudmasri (talk) 19:14, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that the css script merely replaces the default font with one chosen by the script. However, if the font family is pre-determined by another script (like wiki templates) the external fonts are then used instead. I think for example that once you install the Maltho fonts you should have no problem viewing the correct form here regardless whether you use a modified css script or not.
 * I will try working with my already created templates even though they don't follow the general form of Template:Script/language/a_font. Thanks for your time anyway.--  R a f y  talk 15:38, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

With respect to your comments on my talk page:
Two points: 1. I come from a household in which which pronunciation is closer to MSA. This is my grandfather's influence, as he comes from a long line of Azharis. 2. Pay close attention, and you'll find a wide variation in pronunciation, based on several factors: the social background of the speaker, the social setting of the speech, the subject at hand, etc. Two old, well-educated men like my grandfather talking about politics in an ahwa will use different pronunciations rather different from two educated youths talking about the same exact thing (as they will be these days) in the apartment upstairs, and rather different from uneducated middle-aged men two ahwas over--even as they use many of the same exact words. Lockesdonkey (talk) 18:34, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, exactly. Pronunciation differs even sometimes by the same speakers, but generally, I transcribe in the closest way to how most people generally pronounce and I think that transcription should be the closest to how most people pronounce. If you come to Egypt, you'll notice yourself that generally, the vowels which Egyptians pronounce in their regular speech (not in carefully pronounced loanwords and not when pronouncing literary Arabic) are:, while these vowels are being only pronounced as long vowels when occurring in stressed syllables, not before two consonants or as short vowels when occurring at the end of a word. Also, there is a lack of vowel lengthening if they don't occur at a stressed syllable and if occurred before two consonants. So, all of these long vowel  would be shortened to . Examples, that Arabic word جاسوس ǧāsūs would be pronounced by Egyptians as , not ; the French word titre  is pronounced by Egyptians as . --Mahmudmasri (talk) 22:14, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of phonemic transcriptions in Egyptian Arabic
I noticed that you have deleted my phonemic transcriptions of Egyptian Arabic, claiming that they are "ambiguous". From a linguistic standpoint, there is a very good reason why phonemic transcriptions are used, which is that they abstract out numerous complications relating to allophonic rules. The vowel lengthening/shortening/insertion/deletion rules and the emphasis-spreading rules are very good examples of this. Using etc. obscures the simple relationship that holds between  and, a relationship that's extremely important to convey clearly in order for the reader to understand how the phonetic adjustments and emphasis-spreading rules work. Although the relationship between e.g., and  may be obvious to a native speaker such as you, it's much less obvious to a non-native speaker, and adds unnecessary complication to the already tricky process of following the various adjustment rules. This is why the best Egyptian Arabic textbooks all use notation or similar, and write inti ʕandik sēf rather than enti ʕandek seef or whatever. Also, formerly the Egyptian Arabic article as I wrote it (or at least, I wrote the majority of it) was consistent in its notation, but your changes have made it more and more a mishmash of different transcription systems. Benwing (talk) 03:11, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I took the liberty of moving the stuff you wrote below (plus a copy of the above paragraph, and my response) to Talk:Egyptian Arabic. Benwing (talk) 22:13, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

MSA pronunciation
Are you sure that is the MSA (not colloquial) pronunciation in Egypt? I ask because I've heard it stated that proper MSA in Egypt does not use this sound. Since you're Egyptian, I trust what you say about the speech there, but when describing MSA you want to make sure you describe the standard pronunciation heard e.g. in radio broadcasts rather than the "mixed" pronunciation many people use when speaking a sort of pseudo-MSA with other educated speakers. It's for this reason that I doubt that Gulf speakers use /j/ for in their MSA: Gulf Arabic has both /j/ and /dʒ/ as different phonemes (/dʒ/ becomes /j/ only in the vicinity of a front vowel, and /j/ of course also occurs in other words, corresponding to its Classical usage), so I doubt that radio broadcasters mix these up. Benwing (talk) 04:56, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Obviously, those writings weren't precise. In Egypt, Literary Arabic is taught as to pronounce ج as and it is taught that its name is  (not  nor ). Yes, not mixed, in Egyptian radios and TVs, even in state TV and by officials in the most formal situations. This is an example of a report narrated fully in MSA. Listen to the clear . Search for speeches in MSA made by Egyptian officials. TV stations such as AlJazeera forces Egyptian anchors not to pronounce ج as  but as . Persian Gulf speakers use  in MSA. Literary Arabic  corresponds to spoken dialects  of Persian Gulf (example: Sharjah), although when pronouncing MSA they pronounce it as . The only case which you might hear Egyptians pronounce ج as  (not ) is in reciting Koran or if he were of some rural illiterates, as a result won't speak in MSA because it's not a native language of anybody. Even Egyptians who do not speak Egyptian Arabic natively, meaning that they speak other dialects, such as Saidi Arabic, would pronounce ج as  in Literary Arabic because that's the prestigious pronunciation in our society. It is extremely rare and non-normative if you ever found an Egyptian who pronounces it as  in normal situations when pronouncing MSA. The restricted pronunciation of ج in Koran  in Egypt is called جيم معطشة  or تعطيش الجيم . --Mahmudmasri (talk) 05:43, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Remember that chart Talk:Egyptian Arabic? That's the phonology of Literary Arabic in Egypt not Egyptian Arabic. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 06:16, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. I think the source I read for Egyptian  was described as essentially "how they recommend to say it in Al-Azhar University", which certainly may not be standard.  My Arabic teacher was from Egypt and she would usually say,  and only occasionally , which I took as an error (as in  "newspapers", with colloquial /j/).  But I imagine now this was because she was trying to imitate the "standard" (non-Egyptian) pronunciation and occasionally slipped up. (Similarly, she made a lot of errors in case markers.  I assume this is because very few Arabic speakers can reliably use the right case markers in extemporaneous speech -- if so, this is because, although it's certainly possible to learn how to get this right, it's hard to learn for a non-native speaker, and MSA speakers don't have much opportunity or need to practice this.)


 * BTW the Gulf pronunciation of /q/ as occurs only adjacent to an /i/ (Sharjah is literary šāriqah).  You can see this in the pronunciation table for /q/ listed in varieties of Arabic (unfortunately this table doesn't have a universal example of /q/ next to /i/; /quddām/ often becomes spoken /qiddām/, which then evolves into  etc., but this isn't universal). Benwing (talk) 07:18, 13 August 2011 (UTC)


 * As a result of you wrote, I think that out of the Arab League, where Literary Arabic is taught, they try to create a standard and choose the for ج, because you even considered it the standard, when indeed in Egypt,  is the standard which makes that phoneme with multi-standards. It is also interesting why recitation of Koran has . Of course there was a chosen pronunciation for reciting Koran in order not to hear it pronounced differently in each region. Why was that pronunciation chosen? Was it because at Hijaz area where it is believed that Muhammad lived, pronounce  so they thought that their modern pronunciation had to be the closest to the original? It is generally believed that the original was  which makes  closer to the original and should have been the Koranic recitation pronunciation. I am trying to search for more information about that issue. If you found something, please tell me about it. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 17:47, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

About the /i/ and /u/ vowels (claimed [e] [o] by you)
Hi Mahmud. I listened to the link you pointed me to about. I tried to listen to the vowels; the short vowels are a slightly centralized, not at all a. Granted, this is MSA, and the audio is also poor quality. But I also listened to the following link:, which is supposedly an introduction to spoken Egyptian Arabic. The long vowels in ēh, fēn, xēr do sound like, but the short vowels /i u/ do not sound anything like cardinal. I wonder if you have gotten confused about what the cardinal vowels sound like? To me, short Egyptian /i u/ in this video sound like strongly centralized -- not too different from the English vowels also denoted. by their nature are centralized vowels, and can vary somewhat in the amount of centralization, but the sound of Egyptian /i u/ (and the similar English sounds) are definitely within range. are peripheral vowels, which ideally should have no centralization.

Note that occasionally I hear other vowels, e.g. in tiṣbaḥ ʕala xēr, the /i/ sounds more like or even possibly  -- very different from the other vowels. In is-sāʕa kam, the last word sounds more like. Occasionally, instances of (unstressed, very short) /i/ do sound like, but this is not the majority. E.g. around 0:52, the speaker says inta minēn, which sounds to me sometimes like, sometimes like. But the pronunciation of inta is clear, including what is definitely  (not ), and  (not  or similar). Similarly, most u in the video sound like, not.

It should also be noted that every one of my sources describes Egyptian vowels as, not ; unless you can find a scholarly source that says the opposite, then we really have no choice but to simply list them as. Benwing (talk) 12:55, 13 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I listened to the clip. The first guy said السلام عليكم in MSA, then the rest of his speech was in EA and pronounced the short high vowel closer to the first time, the next time it was . The second guy's open vowel was  at times, rather than . The only time which he pronounced  was when he pronouncing تصبح, next to the pharyngealized consonant . At شكرا he pronounced the high back vowel as . The last time he pronounced again شكرا was with . الساعة was pronounced with a vowel closer to  and كام was . At 0:52 انت (منين)‏  was that time closer to  but slightly backed from the cardinal vowel and it was weird to hear him pronouncing  in place of final . The rhotic in نشرب was more like  than . وحشتنى was with . بكرة was with . Both of those guys' pronunciations weren't stable.


 * About the previous video, yes, you are correct. There are places where an Egyptian would pronounce ~ in endings such as, as in به . --Mahmudmasri (talk) 16:47, 13 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Pin-pen merger :) --Mahmudmasri (talk) 17:17, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Classical Arabic origin
I think actually what I wrote isn't quite right. I'm not completely sure but it seems that in reality there was a "poetic koine" created by the pre-Islamic Bedouin poets and taught in certain scribal schools of the (Persian?) empire of the time, which was substantially identical to what we know of as "Classical Arabic". It was based on Eastern Bedouin dialects but notably conservative even for the time, in that e.g. many Bedouin dialects didn't have case marking. It was highly respected by the Bedouins but apparently also by the Meccan inhabitants. The Meccan speech of the time was actually quite different from the poetic koine, but similar in some ways to modern Hijazi Arabic; for example, it didn't have case marking, but also had certain other features that are similar to modern Arabic features, e.g. saying dallaytu instead of dalaltu. However, the Meccans used a version of the poetic koine for formal and/or solemn occasions, which was modified a bit in the direction of their own speech -- specifically, the lack of hamza except word-initially, and the word-final difference between and. Muhammad learned this language and used it for dictating the Koran -- and may not have known of its origin in the pre-Islamic poets (or at least, that's the explanation given for how it is that he criticized the pre-Islamic poets so severely while still using their language). It's thought that if Muhammad actually had used Meccan speech in dictating the Koran, it would have been impossible to make it conform to the poetic koine simply by respelling it.

But yes, what you say is right, that MSA is basically an artificial construction that is itself built on top of another artificial construction. These artificial constructions actually happen fairly often -- e.g. modern standard Italian and German are both more or less artificial constructions, versions of the literary languages (themselves artificial mixtures of dialects) created respectively by Dante and Martin Luther and further modified in the direction of the most prominent modern spoken dialects (northern Italian and central German). This is why the written languages have certain features (e.g. the preterite tense in Italian, and the genitive case in German) that are used only in writing.

I forget exactly where I read this. Some of the references you can find on JSTOR, although I'm not sure whether you have access to it (mostly only if you have access to a university library). (Otherwise you can only see the first page.) For example, "Prosody and the Initial Formation of Classical Arabic" (Farhat J. Ziadeh, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 106, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1986), pp. 333- 338) says:
 * Arabic prosody had had a telling effect on the formation of the classical Arabic language. It is generally agreed among scholars that classical Arabic was a super-tribal language, akoinē, that was used in pre-Islamic Arabia by poets, seers, and composers of rhymed prose, and that it never constituted the spoken vernacular of any one Arabic-speaking tribe or group. It, thus, was never a "natural" language but a "cultivated" language that developed in such a way as to fit the purpose for which it was used, namely poetry with its problems of prosody, particularly meter, and rhymed prose. Evidence presented suggests that meter and rhyme were instrumental in shaping the morphological structure of the language by forcing the poets to coin new word forms, to modify others, and generally to make many features of the language serve the requirements of meter, and sometimes rhyme. The evidence consists of the results of the molding process in the language as it is known to us in pre-Islamic poetry, the Qur'an, and later literary works.

Another one is "The Beginnings of Classical Arabic" (C. Rabin, Studia Islamica, No. 4 (1955), pp. 19-37). Also "Arabiya" by the unfortunately named J. Fück, which seems to be a landmark historical study of Classical Arabic. "Case and Proto-Arabic, Part I" (Jonathan Owens, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 61, No. 1 (1998), pp. 51-73) lists a lot of references of linguistics discussions on the historical development of Arabic. He especially mentions Frederico Corriente (1976, "From Old Arabic to Classical Arabic through the pre-Islamic koine: some notes on the native grammarians' sources, attitudes and goals', Journal of Semitic Studies, 21: 62-98), who apparently says "Classical Arabic is itself the endpoint of a development within the complex of varieties of Old Arabic (also Rabin, 1955). Its crystallization in the late eighth century was determined '... by native grammarians whose main concern was to set up a standardized, socio-linguistically biased type of Arabic for formal register purposes, i.e. Al- 'Arabiyya' (1976: 62). " Benwing (talk) 05:48, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry
About this. I didn't notice the coding changes. I should have been looking more closely. While here, can I ask you what "more commonly known as Bēt" is referring to? Another name of Bayt Lahm in Arabic or the transliteration of Beit? Its not clear how it reads at present. Thanks.  T i a m u t talk 18:01, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Now fixed, Bēt Laḥm. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 18:19, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

ǧ controversy
It's OK -- I'm not holding a long-term bitter grudge or anything. I don't really remember all the details of what were said -- only that I resented being accused of being anti-Egyptian just because I pointed out that a common Egyptian pronunciation wasn't quite as fully 100% Classical or "standard" as another pronunciation... AnonMoos (talk) 10:12, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

/* Rare Arabic-based letters */ another way to get consistent fonts in the table
Thanks for the note on my talk page - see my response at Talk:Arabic_chat_alphabet. @alex (talk) 07:10, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

re comments at User talk:Erutuon
Hello, Mahmudmasri

While I was leaving a message at User talk:Erutuon, I noticed a message from you in which you said: "what's the use of fabricating false information of implying that Arabic speakers use such names for those letters. ... We never ever say ve, pe, gaf... That's a common mistake I saw in Wikipedia articles and I correct that."

While it is true that speakers of many languages do not give names to the letters of their own alphabets, when we are writing in English about the letters of alphabets other than our own, we do refer to those letters by names. This is not to imply that native speakers themselves use these names, but we English speakers do – we have to have some way to refer to letters in alphabets that we do not use ourselves. —Coroboy (talk) 03:18, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The context of the specific sentences I referred to implied that the names are used by natives. That's why I didn't change those names in other articles in other contexts. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 04:30, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * OK. Thanks for that. I did not know the context. —Coroboy (talk) 07:05, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

File source and copyright licensing problem with File:Arabic alphabet world distribution.PNG
Thanks for uploading File:Arabic alphabet world distribution.PNG. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status and its source. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously.

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Please also check any other files you may have uploaded to make sure they are correctly tagged. Here is [ a list of your uploads]. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 04:29, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Wrong notice
I assume that the notice was likely by a robot, that's why it was sent to all the users who edited the image. I think now it is clear who mistakenly tagged it from the first place. Thanks --Mahmudmasri (talk) 06:34, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Michael. It is clear that it wasn't my picture
 * It is clear that Sudhir.swarnkar was the one to license it incorrectly
 * I only didn't notice that the license was incorrect from the first place, because these images are too widely used and edited on Wikimedia.

Yisra'elit
Hello. I am here regarding Modern Hebrew.

The word ישראלי/ישראלית is marked with shva under both sin and resh, so its standard pronunciation is yisrə'eli(t). If you mean the modern pronunciation, it should be transcribed as israeli(t), without "y" and without apostrophe. It's my point of view. What is yours?

Thanks in advance. Vcohen (talk) 17:43, 23 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for opening the topic. Yes, you are right then we should use ‹e› rather than ‹ə› or ‹a›: ‹Yisre'elit› or ‹Yisreelit› or maybe ‹Yisrelit›. Which of the following three pronunciations is closest to the modern pronunciation,  or ? --Mahmudmasri (talk) 11:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * It's difficult to follow the real pronunciation that is not fully described in any source. My personal subjective impression is that the native speakers say (without j), but this may vary from person to person. Therefore I think that the only reliable thing is the standard Hebrew as described in dictionaries.
 * On the other hand, when we have a written form with nikud, we still have to find out its pronunciation. There is a rule saying that the second of two consecutive shvas is pronounced "e", so yisreelit looks acceptable.
 * On the third hand, I see that "ə" is used in Wikipedia when speaking about the modern Hebrew. I understand it as shva pronounced "e", but I may be wrong. Vcohen (talk) 16:27, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * So, please use the transcription you see to fit the most. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 16:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I've changed something trying to reflect two different versions. Fix it after me as you wish. Vcohen (talk) 13:00, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

marriage in islam
Please see the reverting of your mahr = dowry. You need to read the rest of article and see the distinction which I had previously made of the fact most people think the Arabic word mahr means the same as in English word dowry - which it does not - and you have fallen into the the common error that is sadly now common place even by translators of the Quran because they fail to realise there is no exact English equivalent word for the Arabic word, or they are not bold enough to say so and use mahr in English text. The fact Wiktionary says it is the same in meaning is worthless as a justification because it is not! As you know wiktionary is user edited and not authoritative. Please see other articles in Wikipedia about Dower, Dowry, etc to see the difference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mhakcm (talk • contribs) 22:25, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Arabic script
Perhaps you could do some help by re-adding the very nice purposeful gallerias in all of the page that were all deleted by someone donot see its value. see talk page of Arabic script page.--Ashashyou (talk) 17:03, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you could help in Arabic script page
Arabic script page, see talk page of this page. I see you are editing in the Arabic alphabet page also Arabic script page needs Arabic speaking experts contributions.--Ashashyou (talk) 11:39, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know what's wrong with the article. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 11:47, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

File:Secular world map2.gif listed for deletion
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Secular world map2.gif, has been listed at Files for deletion. Please see the to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Bulwersator (talk) 07:51, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Verdana
see Talk:Verdana — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.177.145.141 (talk) 15:02, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Servant of God
The translation in the article and the adjacent HTML comment now contradict each other... AnonMoos (talk) 14:03, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * How? --Mahmudmasri (talk) 14:51, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok, sorry, guess it was actually contradictory before your edit... AnonMoos (talk) 21:11, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

الا تعرف انه لا يوجد شيء اسمه لغة مصرية حديثة سوى اللغة القبطية التي لا يتحدث بها سوى عشرات. --Uishaki (talk) 12:26, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Tajwid
I see you have done some work on the Tajwid article. Right now the last verse of fatiha is given as an example of maddah but does not itself have the maddah sign. Do you know some place where a maddah sign can be copied and pasted to it? Thank you! Sodicadl (talk) 06:12, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Let me see... --Mahmudmasri (talk) 11:18, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
 * See these pictures? They are written in a different style from what is used in Modern Standard Arabic. I'll type them with the classical style, however, both styles are correct. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 11:38, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Nice! Sodicadl (talk) 07:32, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Re: Respell
Hi Mahmudmasri,

In general, if you open a talk page discussion and notify the user, and don't get a response in a reasonable time period, you should feel free to make the changes you wanted to make. If he reverts your edits after that, it might be grounds for administrative action, but at this point that is unnecessary; you can be bold and make the edits now.

Cheers, Ynhockey (Talk) 08:07, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Forget I said the above. I just checked the template itself and it's protected. I will make the edits for you. Cheers, Ynhockey (Talk) 08:12, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
 * P.S. Just to make sure, are you talking about this edit? It was made in 2010. —Ynhockey (Talk) 08:13, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, I meant this edit. You can still choose to create a new class or use an already used class such as . Thanks for your help. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 19:02, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. Please let me know if it breaks anything. —Ynhockey (Talk) 11:47, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅: Now it just works fine. Thanks. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 16:14, 27 July 2012 (UTC)