User talk:JackyR/ZyXoas' archive

Yo. just wanted to let you know I can edit wikiped on "my" 3g phone (with limitations), so you can ask me short questions and I might answer them. in order for this to work you should create a new empty section on you talk page and i'll post a response in that. one of the limitations is that i can't enter new lines so i cant start new headings, sort of. Yes, I know I'm pathetic... zyxoas. 18:24, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Viva Google
I've been using Google.s translation service for some time now to helplessly view wikiped but I think the reason i think i can edit now is because i'm using a different gateway (the 100% free vodadone live) so i got sent to this weird xhtml google which can convert edit boxes and images as well instead of the old wml one. Thanks once again for being so nice and not being put off by my sometimes irrational /rude rants. User:ZyXoas 20:35, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Huh?
Can you read minds? How could you tell what I wanted to say especially since I couldn't submit my message because of some server error after I had spent 20 minutes typing it in?! I was just wondering what we were doing up this late. It's almost one in the morning where I am. Also, you can delete all this stuff I've written if you like. Sleep well, if ever... Tebello Thejane (zyx) 22:54, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Hey. I have half a mind to award you a barnstar for being such a kewl-ass chick! Another limitation is that I can only submit 256 chars @ a time. If I edit text wikiped automatically inserts a newline at the bottom so I can start a new section and make incremental edits. The only person who seems to have more patience than me is you!

Dichoonou?
Although all Kintu langs are spoken conjunctitely only (as far as I know) the Nguni languages are written as such. So "Ke a o rata" in Sesotho but "Ngiyakuthanda" in isiZulu ("I love you"). Both these are ONE WORD with the stress on the second last syllable. Each word has only one imbebed complete part of speech which is generally the last component. Perhaps you could ask Taejo how he learnt this in isiXhosa. Interesting...

Well, dichoo?
Verbs in Kintu langs are monotonous when not under the influence of Sandhi. Also, the Sesotho languages tend to have tones opposite to other Kintu langs for words from the same ancient root. So the Sesotho class prefixes are all low whereas other langs have them high. Z "ukuhleba --__" S "ho seba _--" root "kukjeba -__" " to gossip, whisper, slander". Kewl.

all relative
Adjectives are very lacking in Kintu langs. Kintu had only 1 adj "-kulu, big" and many Kintu langs, like Kiswahili, have 0 adj's. They instead have relatives. Sesotho's 44 is extremely large, this is because in S the 25 colours are adj's. The main dif is the concords used. Relatives can come from verbs so they are infinite. The isiZulu article incorrectly says adj's are like verbs - it's confusing adj's with rel's.

eg
Ah well, whatever. I might have infinite patience with phones but not with idiotic psuedo-admins. Talk 2 u later? I meant joe was a retard, not you, btw (edit summary). Bye...

Quick tip
About your language survey, please Google for "Chitsonga" and tell me if you notice anything interesting about the matches. Being diplomatic is nice and all but you can't ignore the truth when it's staring you in the face. I think this lie was started by one person and it was soon uncritically copied to the other wikipeds. Now you know why I sometimes seem so agitated - why hasn't anyone noticed this before?! ZyXoas 08:58, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

One Word breaks a vow of silence.
Obviously names break the rules! The first 2 names are grammatically one word while "Thatayamodimo" is 2. The parts of speech are the nouns "thata" (?) and "modimo" (God). The "ya" in the middle is a possessive concord (concords are not parts of speech). So the name means "Thata of God". In normal (disjunctive) writing it would be "Thata ya Modimo" while in isiXhosa it might be "Ithata yaThixo".

Parse it around!
I parse sentences the same way that you parse in English: I glance @ the words &amp;amp; my brain interpolates the meaning! One advantage of conjunctive writing is you can translate without having to worry about context - each grammatical word generally always means the same thing. So "nomtwana" ALWAYS means "with a/the child" in isiZulu. Give me a short-ish sentence in English and I'll show you what I mean. But don't use complex ideas or words - I'm bad at translating!

Connectivity
The connectivity in RSA is World class. 1000 kbps ADSL lines are popular. I simply don't have the 400 Rand plus per month for one. 400 is nothing - I simply don't have a job! And I doubt if my mother would pay that money for something she would not know how to use! There is enough to worry about with university. 23:26, 11 March 2006 (UTC) ZyXoas.
 * That's connectivity too, surely! OK, there I am abusing the English lang again - I meant it in a non-technical sense: if much of the population can't access web-stuff easily for one reason or another, then SA's representation on-line is disproportionately low (and skewed, of course, but that's another story...). But my first ever international email was to SA - 1994. Gosh how clever it all felt then! Right, I really am off now :-) Sleep well...

Mopane worms
If it's mopane in Setswana then it would be mupani in other langs (with 7 vowels). Don't think "an important source of protein", only a delicacy, but I'm prob. wrong. R U sure "mopane" is from "phane"? i don't know what words mean but it seems linguistically irregular. "Masonja" is prob. colloquial/slang as it breaks "law of nasal homogeneity" - see Sesotho. Masonzha prob. Tshivenda. zh pron. as s in "version", dzh as g in "virgin". Tshivenda "l of nh" conv. dzh to nzh.

Economics
"Multi-million dollar industry"? perhaps.. (maybe it's a multi-million  Zimbabwean dollar industry!!). "Rely on worm as source of food" - I'm not so sure...

Citing
Great point about mundane knowledge on talk page. No one would ask you to cite your sources if you were to claim that the s in "version" is a voiced prepalatal fricative and the g in "virgin" is a voiced prepalatal affricative, right? English's 16 or so vowels make it difficult for foreigners, and althgough I can distinguish between all of them I've noticed that Americans can't eg dist between "dad" and "dead" - but don't cite me on that!

Crickets
Just as I'm not sure about mopane worms I'm also not sure about crickets. We don't eat many insects here in central RSA, but there is a Sesotho proverb "bana ba motho ba kgaolelana hlooho ya tsie" lit. "siblings divide the grasshopper's head" ie people should always share no matter how little they have. Hope that helps! ZyX 09:59, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Moshoeshoe I
The article claims that his father was Mokhachane - his name was actually Khachane. No, this is not an example of the prefix war - "mokhachane" means "a pregnant woman" and my late brother's second name was Khachane (mine is Motse - village/homestead). I have no idea what the name means, but it could be from Mokhachane. Please just change it - be italic. User:ZyXoas 12:53, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Being blocked is fun! :-)
Why haven't you responded to recent messages? It doesn't matter anyway since User:Essjay had blocked my IP for 24 hours - I think he's allergic to the phrase "reply on my talk page" and, like another admin, doesn't seem to understand exactly what it means! Obviously I was not entirely impressed with being blocked for some reason I do not even fully understand. "Repeated personal attacks"? :-/ ZyX

Language survey
did the above section come out properly? I didn't know I was an L1 speaker of Engrish! "Bloem" is short for "Bloemfontein". I misplaced my own personal copy but I think that the RSA constitution specifies the country's official langs by name. I'll look for it - sometime. If you understood properly what I meant by "7 vowels" (mopane) then you'd immediately see that "seSwati" can't be a valid Nguni word. Shall I elaborate?

Anyhoo
And my wikiblues continue... I just spent some 20 minutes trying to save the last section, so I forgot what else I wanted to say! I hope you won't have me blocked if I ask you to "respond on my talk page"? User:ZyXoas 00:01, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Vowels
Next time I say something weird about English, just ask me to cite my sources. English has 23 vowels, counting diphthongs and triphthongs. Being an amateur African linguist I failed to see why these were considered single vowels, then literally a few hours ago I realised: although many langs can have long strings of vowels they can still be pronounced with separating glotal stops for emphasis but in Eng you can't pronounce fire as fa-i-e, right?

Kintu vowels
In case you're interested, here are Carl Meinhof's Ur-Bantu vowels. They come from Meinhof and Warmelo's Introduction to the phonology of the Bantu languages, Berlin 1932. I haven't read the text, but I would love to - as you can imagine!

The primary vowels.
a - a vowel which exists in all langs in one way or another. Almost like the vowel in love. i - like the y vowel in cosy. u - a shorter version of the vowel in too. Most Kintu langs have all 3 vowels. In the Sesotho group langs, however, i and u have weakened to the position of the vowels in sit and look. Maybe it's because they still have the close vowels?

Mixed vowels.
e - like the SA pron. of get. o - like a short version the SA pron. of law. They are pron. a bit higher than how you would say them. Most Kintu langs have these vowels but the Southern African langs have a funky system where they have the vowels in lack and lock. They then become raised under certain circumstances to the original Kintu vowels, see Sesotho.

Close vowels
note: these chars are supposed to have circumflexes, but I can't type them on my phone so I used italics. i - much higher than a short form of the vowel in beat.u - much higher than a short form of the vowel in boot. These vowels are so high that when you say them part of the tongue touches the roof of the mouth. Most Kintu langs, when they took roots from Kintu, mispronounced some consonants due to sound changes caused by these vowels. Particularly, l gets changed to a retroflex tap (ancient Sesotho and some Northern Sesotho langs.), "d" (most Sesotho langs.), "z" (many Kintu langs and almost all Nguni langs), "dz" (Tshivenda), "t" (siSwata and Xitsonga) - just look at the class 10 prefixes in the various langs.

So
wondering how I managed to type so many chars in one section? It's a secret. Well, next time you see a word allegedly from a Kintu lang, keep the above lesson in mind. Oops, I forgot to mention that almost all Kintu langs have lowered the close vowels to the same position as the vowels in cosy and too. Once again however, the Sesotho langs have to be special - they still have these vowels... So, most Kintu langs have 5 vowels, most Southern African langs have 7 vowels, and the Sesotho langs have 9, or do they...

9 vowels or 11?
What I'm about to tell you barely obeys WP:NOR - so be careful. Under certain seemingly ill-understood circumstances, the 2 vowels in the Sesotho langs which sound like sit and look get raised to the vowels in beat and boot. Note the Setswana name Molefe, the Sesotho version Molefi is commonly mis-spelled Molifi. Even in Lesotho Maloti is sometimes mis-spelled Maluti. I think this has something to do with the tones and positions of the vowels in the surrounding syllables, but I have yet to thoroughly research this phenomenon - I've seen it mentioned once in passing in only only 1 book on Sesotho phonetics. Anyhoo, sorry to tire you out once again, but this stuff is interesting!! User:ZyXoas 19:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

An Australian story
An English fighter pilot crasher in Australia. When he wakes up in a military hospital, he asks the nurse "Nurse, was I brought in to die?" to which she replies "No, they brought you in yesterday". ZyX 20:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Nguni
This article (which - I just realised when checking the very short official edit history of ZyXoas - I actually created) has a stupid recursive/circular link to Nguni_languages. The quality is also sub-terranean - what else is new?! Please also include Ngoni as a lang. I don't know where they got the idea that Nguni is an artificial term from - where does the name Ngoni come from? User:ZyXoas 09:44, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Ngoni
News flash: THERE ARE NO ANIMISTS IN AFRICA! There are no animists in Southern Sudan, there are no animists in Ethiopia, there are no animists in Nigeria, there are animists among the KhoiSan, there are no animists in Africa. How many Africans do you know who believe that each rock and every tree contains a spirit? Right. The article on African religion is also retarded (can't remember its name). There is a famous well know classic text which thoroughly debunked this published a few decades ago - I'll try to remember its name. There is no Ancestor_worship either. The truth is a bit complicated and stems from an instinctual philosophy common to all Africans - whether sub-Saharan, KhoiSan, West African, or Nilotic. It's convenient for the West to think that stupid Africans couldn't have climbed up the religious "evolutionary" ladder without outside help. Where do the wiki editors who write sub-stubs on Africans get their "information" from? No modern scholar of African culture would ever write this crap, you don't find painters writing articles on Integrated Circuit design so why do we have people writing articles on African topics they know zero about? It's a no brainer - if you don't know what you are talking about then don't talk about it!!

Speaking of which
Why is Mannen av Bord, who clearly cannot speak a word of Sesotho, writing so many useless 5-word articles on the Sesotho wikipedia? Who told this guy that Sesotho = Setswana and that it was acceptable to write in an encyclopedia when you can't even string together a coherent sentence in the lang you're writing in? Then I get blocked by some dude who clearly has never heard of the lang and is too arrogant to follow a simple link to one's user/talk page.

As you can imagine, I'm very bitter about my block, especially after seeing your conversation at Meta. Seriously - it sucks. I'm thinking of forgetting about the Sesotho wikipedia altogether. The best that can be done at this stage is to delete the whole thing and and start from the bottom with people who know what they are doing - that's never going to happen, if the way I was treated is anything to go by. User:ZyXoas 22:37, 15 March 2006 (UTC)