User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 7

Swahili Country List
I don't mean to be overly argumentative on the Swahili language page about the countries in the infobox, but I'm doing a very restrictive read on the sources. User:Middayexpress is on a rampage on the Arabic language page and keeps citing Oman and UAE on the Swahili language page as "evidence" for why there should be a long list of countries on the Arabic language page. He's not arguing the Arabic language issues at all, but focusing on the Swahili language page. I don't want him to have one drop of fuel for his tirade on the Arabic language page based on an overly broad list of countries on the Swahili language page. I'm sticking very tightly to the references in this case. It's nothing personal with you, I assure you. (Taivo (talk) 08:27, 2 January 2009 (UTC))


 * The language map covers Congo and Comoro Swahili, so the country list should as well. We should also exclude South Africa if we exclude other immigrant communities. kwami (talk) 08:30, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, I'll remove South Africa even though Ethnologue specifically includes it. But the Comoros distribution of non-Comorian Swahili is covered by Mayotte. (Taivo (talk) 08:34, 2 January 2009 (UTC))


 * You say that like it's unreasonable. What, we have one stupid editor, so we should all sink to his level? Ethnologue specifically mentions the US, Oman, and the UAE as well, and ELL2 specifically mentions the UK and "many Western countries". kwami (talk) 08:39, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not unreasonable. Sorry if it sounded that way.  Ethnologue has two levels of reference to countries where languages are spoken--primary and secondary I'll call them.  The primary level is where a language has a detailed entry in a country's chapter.  That is the case for Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, South Africa, Mayotte, Mozambique, and Somalia for Swahili.  The secondary level is where within a detailed entry for a language in one country's chapter (in this case, Tanzania), it tangentially mentions a list of "other countries" where the language is spoken.  This list contains no details of the speech community in those countries and does not always match the country chapters in which the language actually has a detailed entry.  Thus, in the chapters for Oman, UAE, and USA there is no entry for Swahili.  The only mention of these countries in reference to Swahili is in the detailed Tanzania entry for Swahili.  These secondary lists are fundamentally less reliable than the primary references to languages.  I did not include ELL2 in the list of cited references since I don't have a copy of it and did not refer to it.  I have looked at the entries for the other references I included since I own all of them.  Personally, I am a little uncomfortable with listing every country in the "diaspora".  The question always arises as to how many speakers need to live in a country before we list it in a country list?  My wife speaks Russian, but do we really want to start listing the USA as one of the countries where Russian is spoken?  Perhaps we need to initiate a discussion on the Language Infobox page about exactly how to determine what countries go in this box.  This was all precipitated by an edit war I was observing on the Arabic language page between someone including Malta and someone removing it.  Rather than let the edit war continue, I used the "Region" option in the Language infobox to remove the two dozen country names and replace them with "Middle East and North Africa".  That's when Middayexpress started reverting and talking about the Swahili page. (Taivo (talk) 08:50, 2 January 2009 (UTC))
 * I agree that it would be silly to list every country where a speaker happens to have immigrated. However, I don't think it's appropriate to blindly follow Ethnologue, even to prove a point to some POV pusher. Swahili has an entry under Mayotte and South Africa, but it's spoken by immigrant communities in those countries, just as it is in the US and UK. At least, Ethnologue states that explicitly for South Africa, and ELL2 makes no mention of Swahili in Mayotte, despite two paragraphs discussing how immigrants from the Comoros have influenced the speech of various villages around Mayotte. Ethnologue does not have consistent coverage between countries. kwami (talk) 09:03, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem. Mayotte can go, too.  I have reported Middayexpress under 3RR for Arabic language.  Should I continue to revert him or just leave it?  (Taivo (talk) 09:18, 2 January 2009 (UTC))


 * Don't give him legitimate reason to complain. I'll do it. kwami (talk) 09:20, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Once again, sorry for when I sound like a grumpy old geezer.  I'm really a swell guy :)  (Well, sometimes I really am a grumpy old geezer.)  (Taivo (talk) 09:31, 2 January 2009 (UTC))


 * Hey, I'm amazed what an a-hole I become on Wikipedia sometimes. I can't fault you for mere grumpiness. kwami (talk) 09:36, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Gents, thank you for taking part in the Arabic discussion, and your contribution to a rationale resolution.(collounsbury (talk) 11:57, 2 January 2009 (UTC))

Other languages
For the following, are they diacritics or letters, because i see blank boxes, and how do enable them?

In addition, diacritics were used to create new letters for Min-nan and Hakka.

* These are the "muddy" initials found in Minnan and Wu dialects.

See Taiwanese for the two additional tone marks required to write these languages.

and can you identify the sound values for the extended one for Min-nan and hakka, they are really confusing


 * Unicode reference glyphs for (69.6 KB) &  (61.6 KB)


 * Reading in columns, top to bottom then left to right, these are in the order of the Unicode chart, 31a0 top left, 31b7 bottom left. You may only need an extended zhuyin font.
 * The sound values already are identified. Which specifically are you having trouble with? kwami (talk) 19:46, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

i was acually asking for IPA, sorry for being late.

and the IPA for this too.

Relexification
There's an anonymous IP user trying to delete cross-references at Relexification. He's not talking on the Talk page and has no justification for removing the cross references. (Taivo (talk) 14:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC))


 * Incorrect. I discussed on the talk page, and lastly a sufficiently detailed analysis in my edit summary. 78.144.204.247 (talk) 14:28, 4 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It's interesting that this anonymous IP got to your Talk page so quickly after I reported this to you. Read his comments and edit summaries and you will see that this is something more than just an Anonymous IP trying to "play around" in Wikipedia.  I'm not sure what his agenda is, but it is clearly not directed at improving Wikipedia.  He seems to be a Wikipedia lawyer.  I suspect that there is some kind of underlying agenda to reinsert the Mixed Language argument back into the Maltese language page.  The relexification page is where some of the Maltese sockpuppets were playing around at one point. (Taivo (talk) 15:12, 4 January 2009 (UTC))


 * Wikipedia lawyer? Ha, that's a new one, although yes, I would agree it seems as though I have far more grasp of the rules than yourself. I got here by following your contributions - what amazement. 78.144.204.247 (talk) 15:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, there was an earlier sock puppet running riot on the Relexification page with the anon IP of 78.149.... I wonder if this 78.144.... might be related?  One of the anon IPs trying to make Maltese not of Arabic descent on the varieties of Arabic page was 78.147....  I think I'm seeing the pattern.  (Taivo (talk) 15:23, 4 January 2009 (UTC))


 * It's a London IP. The Maltese socks are in London and Malta. kwami (talk) 20:22, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

re: bansiot
Hi, I'm afraid I don't know much about obsolete Hangul jamo and I don't know anybody knowledgeable in the subject either. Sorry! --Kjoonlee 12:46, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Re: Traditional English Pronunciation of Latin
Currently in North America there is epidemic shortening of "A" long in open penult such as first syllable of DATA and in anatomical and taxonomic terms. Is there any evidence when this began, or did the prescribed traditional pronunciation always differ from usage in this respect? Should this be mentioned in the History section?

Thank you.

Steamer405 (talk) 21:13, 6 January 2009 (UTC) 2009 January 06


 * I didn't write that article (just moved it from a sandbox), and have no idea when this might have occurred. It should be mentioned somewhere, I think, since it's rather noticeable. Is glacier a counterexample, or is the a counted as an antepenult in RP?


 * Is it just a that this happens with? I seem to remember it with other vowels, though nothing comes to mind. (Pedant for example seems to have shortened both sides of the lake. Pomade, maybe?, though that could be due to lack of stress.) kwami (talk) 21:39, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you. Webster's third edition contains more a shortening than the second edition, so this may qualify as a recent phenomenon; I added a note on the page in the History section. Glacier would appear to be antepenult. As to other vowels, I ran a word list through www.morewords.com which allows search by syllable. I don't notice the same prevalence of shortening with other vowels in that position: albedo, aroma, saliva, etc. Steamer405 (talk) 23:17, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Kosciusko
An informal survey on the Internet tells me that Australians pronounce Mt Kosciuszko as /kozzy-OSS-koh/, and where I grew up in Massachusetts there was a street by that name and it was pronounced /koss-key-OOS-koh/. A google search reveals yet more possible pronunciations, such as /kozzy-ESS-koh/ for Mississippi (sorry, typing Wikipedia standard IPA is a hassle). I would say that this name probably does belong on the list, in fact if anything it deserves to be listed at least twice (for Australia and Mississippi; I think the pronunciation I grew up with is confined to that one little neighborhood). If it's okay with you I'll go ahead and add it back into the article, this time with proper formatting. (Or if you'd rather do it yourself that'd be good too.) Soap Talk/Contributions 02:24, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, sorry, go ahead. Without the pronunciation, I thought maybe this was a tennis player with a foreign but perfectly predictable name. kwami (talk) 02:27, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Uh... no
Hanja, Kanji, and Hanzi should be capitalized because they are proper nouns.  moo cows rule talk to moo 00:45, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * They are not proper nouns in English. Check a dictionary. (Not many will have hanzi or hanja, though they are not capitalized in what I've found, but kanji is ubiquitous, and never capitalized.) kwami (talk) 07:32, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Your edits to a commonly used template
Please do not move templates which are used, and not transcluded, on many pages, as this will actually cause a great deal of disruption. Please only move templates after you have gained consensus to do so.— Dæ dαlusContribsRespond on my talk please 09:30, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Such as? kwami (talk) 07:34, 11 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Do you mean EnPR? That's only used on a few pages. There was no apparent disruption that I could see when I moved it to a more accurate name. kwami (talk) 07:43, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Linear B
Kwami, we really need to have some people overseeing what an enthusiastic editor is doing over at Linear B. He's not working within the usual constraints of our Writing Systems projects. -- Evertype·✆ 11:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Remind me if I don't get to it in a couple days. Bit preoccupied right now. kwami (talk) 07:35, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Nudge. -- Evertype·✆ 09:05, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks like things are okay now. Let me know if I'm missing something. kwami (talk) 19:40, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

typeable Stokoe notation
I found Stokoe notation among references to my ASCII-Stokoe notation. Looking at that page, I was startled by the uncredited proposal described there for a typeable ASCII version. Is it yours? Please see Talk:Stokoe_notation. --Thnidu (talk) 19:45, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * As above, will try getting to it in a couple days. kwami (talk) 07:43, 11 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Probably shouldn't have an ASCII version at all. kwami (talk) 17:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:ANI notice
FYI, there is a discussion about your editing at Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:00, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Commons
Bonjour,

Can you load your file to Commons, I don't know how to do. Thanks.

Budelberger (talk) 20:48, 17 January 2009 (UTC).


 * I don't understand. You did load it at Commons. kwami (talk) 06:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Using ɹ
When I skimmed through some dinosaur pages, I noticed that you keep on using r, which represents the "rolled" r, but you should, from now on, use ɹ. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bugboy52.40 (talk • contribs) 03:19, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * No, we should use . Follow the link. kwami (talk) 06:01, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * But take a look at the |IPA chart, it clearly makes the distinction between the alveolar approximant, ɹ, and the alveolar trill, r, which is represented by the spanish rr dipthong. Bugboy52.40 (talk) 19:29, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * [r] in brackets is a trill. /r/ in slashes is not necessarily anything. It could be a vowel if we wanted. We've defined to be the r of run, which is pretty standard for IPA transcriptions of English (Ladefoged, the OED, etc etc). It's the same thing for other symbols. Take your second-last edit, Acrocanthosaurus. We have it, but you could take issue with almost every letter. For instance, you could argue the first vowel is , not , that the oes are , not , that the cees are , not , and that the au is , not . The symbols we chose are semi-arbitrary conventions. The ar is no different apart from being more salient to some ears. kwami (talk) 20:34, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Stop Amending
Was;

''The influence of the seven-days of creation in Genesis was the birth of the continuous seven-day week. But it is claimed by many that Genesis originated from Mesopotamian mythology. ion according to Genesis therefore it's likely it was an evolution of the Sumerian seven-day week.''

Your edit (twice)

''The seven days of creation in Genesis are popularly credited with the birth of the seven-day week. However, this Genesis creation myth may have originated in Mesopotamian mythology Creation according to Genesis and the week is a continuation of the Sumerian seven-day week.''

It's not a continuation of the Sumerian seven-day week is it?! Their week is 4 x 7 plus a day or 2. That's why I stated 'CONTINUOUS' which you have deleted. It's unknown what was used before 586BCE it could have been either. There's a big gap between the two systems. So please stop amending it or add some cites to back up your amendment.--Pnb73 (talk) 08:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC) --Pnb73 (talk) 08:07, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Then you need to explain what you mean. It wasn't at all clear what you were saying. And if you're going to claim that we developed a continuous week because of the Genesis account—that this is known and not just assumed,—then you need some references yourself. kwami (talk) 09:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I did, if you had taken the time to read the words after  "....evolution of the Sumerian seven-day week. " there's a section titled Sumerians . Quite a clue really, you would have understood if you'd read it.

Because that section was titled Jews. It made sense to explain the Sumerian Week within the Sumerian section. Directly below it...

There are references!!!!

The earliest evidence of continuous seven-day week can be attributed to the Jews in 586BCE during the Babylonian Captivity [1]

Apologies if the [1] is too small. Should I put this [1] in bold or a large font for your benefit?

All of this time wasting could have been avoided if you read the feckin' thing. Shall I undo or will you... --Pnb73 (talk) 10:25, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It's conventional to explain things as we go along, and not expect the reader to keep potential contradictions in mind in case they're resolved later in the article. Silly, I know. kwami (talk) 10:46, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, would you be happy if I added after ...evolution of the Sumerian seven-day week? to enlighten those who cannot be bothered to read the next section? --Pnb73 (talk) 11:29, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Do you need instruction from me on how to edit a coherent article? It's not a matter of being bothered, it's a matter of things making sense as they're presented. This isn't a mystery novel. Personally I'd either quickly summarize the point, or rearrange the sections into a more logical order. Or you could go with your facetious suggestion. Your choice. kwami (talk) 11:34, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Now Commons
File:DP masses.png, an image uploaded to Wikipedia from this account in October 2008, is now File:Dwarf planet masses.png (Commons:File:Dwarf planet masses.png). — Athaenara ✉  20:41, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * That works. Thanks for letting me know. kwami (talk) 20:50, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Japanese Parent systems
Hello,

It would be nice if you would care about the "Parent systems" tree consistency in Kana Hiragana Katakana Japanese_writing_system Kanji and maybe add the whole template to Hentaigana Furigana Okurigana Man'yōgana.

I wrote you because I saw that you wrote "Kanji is not a script" which I never thought about and than later said "Hm,right!". I still thing since todays Kanji have a diff. stroke order and new jap. only Kanji it can today be considert a script of its own. However these trees display a Historical development and durring that time Kanji was just Chinese.

Anyway, my english is not that good ,I lack knowledge about the whole thing and I allready made some errors (i studied no linguistics ^^) so I hope you can find the time to take over the disscussion Talk:Japanese_writing_system and keep the trees save :P

The biggest problem IMO is that people constantly try to put "Chinese character" in the tree... And that Kanji was in many of em ...

One big problem is that all Chinese related articles have "Chinese character" at the top (see Chữ_Nôm and Simplified_Chinese_character,Traditional_Chinese_character) most likely because one fail edit ... The tree is a display of development and should not contain this as root. Arabic_alphabet (a.o.) does contain a specific script as well at the top and not some article that talks about the whole development displayed in the tree. All the tree elements are using oracle bone script as root (not changed by me) and are very consistent ... someone did fail edit the "chinese" into the root a long time ago ...

PS: You will see I added "Regular script (Kanji)" ; Which was done only to prevent edits that will put Kanji back in ... do as you like ^^! PPS: I also want you to take over because I have a bad temper when people do something dump :(

Regards !79.192.230.96 (talk) 14:00, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Wow, if you have a worse temper than me, it must really be bad! ;)
 * I wouldn't put an development table in for furigana or okurigana, because they're uses of a script, not scripts themselves. But adding them for hentaigana and man'yougana is a good idea.
 * I removed the lineage from Japanese writing system, since it isn't a single script, and referred the reader to kanji and kana. kwami (talk) 19:44, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Because of your answer I said to myself - try to find your account and lose your bad temper instead ;)
 * I thank you much for your will to help me out and still hope you can keep an eye on the trees as I am just learning the language right now and as I said I have a bad temper and will not activly be here ... I would just get into word wars :)
 * As you saw I edited the Chinese ones for you as far as I found them.
 * As a last thing I wanted to ask you if you have an opinion of Kanji today being a script or not. Since you seem to know the "rules" ^^ Is my idea right that todays Kanji can be seen as a script (see above).
 * I wish you the best Moooitic (talk) 22:40, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, kanji is considered a script, even though it cannot be used on its own. Japanese is commonly said to have "three scripts". Same for hanja. However, I don't know if these are (or should be) considered distinct scripts from (traditional) hanzi, or if all three are better seen as different orthographies using a single script. I mean, is the French alphabet a different script from the English? (In handwriting, many of the letters have different forms.) I suppose the minor national variation between Japan, Korea, and Taiwan might be enough for people to think they're graphically distinct, even though there is probably greater variety in handwriting between individuals in any one country than there is difference between the countries. (Related question: is Cantonese honjih a different script from Mandarin hanzi?) I'd need to see the context to know how to answer that question, assuming that I can. kwami (talk) 23:52, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I was thinking the exact same thing (English = French) as I read your "Kanji is no script". I suppose you are right that stroke order and some jap. made Kanji (and some changes in meaning) are probably not enough to say its another script as other Han character scripts :)


 * Thanks for your time and words. As I don't know if we write us again I wish you the best. "log out" ;) Moooitic (talk) 03:16, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Old Hungarian
You'll note that I did request that discussion take place on the Talk page. -- Evertype·✆ 10:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, I was just echoing you. kwami (talk) 10:17, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Yue Chinese/Standard Cantonese
Hi, some of the mass changes you made over these two days are incorrect. All Hong Kong/Macau should not be changed from Cantonese (linguistics) --> Yue Cantonese but rather to Standard Cantonese. Hopefully you can fix it up, thankyou. Dengero (talk) 13:19, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I'm not making any changes of substance, only redirects. If they're incorrect now, they were incorrect to begin with, so I'll leave it to people like you who are working on the articles to fix em up. (It should now at least be more obvious that they're incorrect!) kwami (talk) 13:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Please note: there is no article for Yue Chinese - it's just a re-direct to the Cantonese article. It seems that the Cantonese (linguistics) article has also been turned into a re-direct to the same article.
 * As such, your changes to this effect make no positive difference - you've just exchanged one re-direct for another. Would it be possible for you to use the bot to change all instances of the piped link Cantonese to simply Cantonese ?
 * Thanks. Gram123 (talk) 10:08, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, it does make a positive difference in planning for Wikipedia. Cantonese has been a dab page several times in the past, and likely will be so again, as there is a suspended but open debate on this issue on several talk pages. Therefore, if we redirect links to Yue Chinese to Cantonese, they will all have to be updated if/when it becomes a dab again, and worse, someone will have to sort through a couple thousand articles to determine which should be redirected to Yue Chinese, Standard Cantonese, Cantonese people, etc. Better to keep things straight through unambiguous redirects. kwami (talk) 10:15, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Another advantage is that I saw hundreds of articles where the author probably thought they were linking to Standard Cantonese. The new redirect name makes the error more apparent, so hopefully these will be eventually corrected. kwami (talk) 01:28, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Swedish u and y
[I don't log in often - email is safer.] I will try to describe Swedish long u and y, but it is tricky - check if it works on somebody else :-). What I say only applies to the dialect I speak (mainstream Stockholm, which is essentially the one generally spoken in national broadcast media).

Start with Swedish long i [i:], compare Swedish pip [pi:p] with English peep [pi:p]; then in Swedish, the vowel position in the mouth is the same, but the tongue puts more pressure onto the roof of the mouth (the passage is narrower), though the airflow should still be smooth (no semblance of frication or trilling), that is, it has higher vowel height.

Now move to y: first say Swedish fira [fi:ra] (haul, celebrate) and move it to fyra [fy:ra] (four). Then I am convinced that the vowel point (backness) should be moved forward in the mouth, towards the tongue position of "s". Then I also think that the vowel point is the same for u, as in fura [fʉːra] (pine). This is in fact opposite to what is shown in the diagram at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology#Vowels

Now to the lip positions: compare fira [fi:ra], fyra [fy:ra], fura [fʉːra] and foga [fuːga] (join). Then the opening formed by the lips successively narrow, listing the opening width and height as follows (these can be measured using a transparent ruler in front of a mirror): word           width     height fira    3.5 cm    5 mm  fyra     2.5 cm    5 mm  fura     1.5 cm    2 mm  foga     0.5 cm    2 mm In all of these, except the last, there is no rounding of the opening - rather it should be as a horizontal bar. In the last one, the lips form a circular opening, but it may be due to the narrowing.

As for the pouting of the lips, that is natural for the last three, but I think it is not essential, but only needed as to form to the mouth opening formed by the lips.

If I compare German für and Swedish fyr [fy:r] (lighthouse), then I use the same lip-formed mouth opening, but the vowel point of the Swedish [y:] is moved forward in the mouth, as described above; I get the French vowel point to be even further back than in German. If I compare French vous or foux with Swedish [u:] (as in foga), then the French mouth opening width is about 1 cm - that is, the Swedish [u:] is considerable more narrow. I get the mouth opening in German Buch is further a bit wider than in French, thus similar to the Swedish u [ʉː] above, though the vowel point is very different.

I should caution that I am not an expert on German and French pronunciation, though I did study those languages to pick up a good approximation of what is spoken.

It strikes me that the general theme is that the Swedish vowels are pronounced to extremes relative French, German and English, without adding fricative effects, which may make speakers of those languages think Swedish is slow and tedious - it might take longer time to pronounce the vowels this way, especially in the absence of diphthongs in Swedish. But, by the same token, those languages may sound sloppy to Swedish speakers that do not know them well. Haberg (talk) 13:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * In reply to your question, I think that the German ü as in für is lip-wise a cross between the Swedish fyra and fura, like this

für    1.5 cm    5 mm that is, mouth opening height as in Swedish [y:], width like in Swedish [ʉ:]. The vocal point (backness) is as in international [i:], tongue and roof not as close as in Swedish, but more like English peep [pi:p]. Haberg (talk) 22:01, 23 January 2009 (UTC)


 * If I look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Exoendo.png, then they look like this (top down in picture)

i: sil  no rounding u: bot  endolabial rounding øː nöt  exolabial rounding To get Swedish [y:], close the lips one half on [øː], but keep the width. To get Swedish [ʉː], widen the [u:], but make sure to keep the height very narrow, maybe even closing down a bit relative [u:].

Also, some linguists (according to Swedish national radio SR) noted that vowel length (time) in Swedish is more important than getting it exactly right in texture - it will then be understood, though sounding foreign. Haberg (talk) 22:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Reply from "Protected" issue
Good day. Thanks for taking your time in informing me.

I was expecting that there will be further vandalisms, that is why I have made an action of semi-protecting some of the articles on English Wikipedia.

If you have still more further concerns, feel free to send me a message. Thanks. - Lee Heon Jin (Talk/Usapan/Pamisabi-sabi) 11:29, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Victoria's IPA
Hi; I'm just curious what the distinction (to a layman) is between IPA: /vɪkˈtɔriə/ and IPA: /vɪkˈtɔɹiə/ might be; I understand that one is a "soft" /r/ and another is a "hard" /r/...but I'm also wondering what your source for this as "authentic" is...myself I say it with barely an /r/ in it, it just flits by; somebody emphasizing the /r/ to me would have the same ring as someone saying "Frazhier" for the Fraser, i.e. an outside affectation; on the other hand an upper-crust expat Brit in Victoria would say it different than someone from another class, or another ethnic background. Whose is correct? Is there a "correct" pronunciation? i.e. in terms of English as it it spoken in Victoria? I'm not so sure. Also with /vænˈkuːvɚ/) that /æ/ kind of bothers me - isn't that a diphthongized "a", a "twang" on the "a" - certainly how Americans say it....I wish I knew IPA better so I could offer how I say it myself, which is sort of a very "flat" non-diphthongized /a/....but then I come from the Fraser Valley, where the influnce of Dutch and German on such names can be very pronounced.....and again, because of hte diversity of the city as it has come to be, I'm uncertain that there is any one "correct" pronunciation anymore...there were articles in the era of the Toronto influx in the '80s commenting on how native Vancouverites (native-born, not FN) Vancouverites allegedly said something like Van-kew-ver; again a straight /u/ (?) sound is more normal to me, but again I was raised around Dutchmen....just some thoughts, and curious what citations are available for these pronunciations/IPAs, and what makes one more authentic than any other?Skookum1 (talk) 13:57, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Follow the link to Help:IPA for English. When sounds appear between /slashes/, they're abstractions (phonemes). The symbols are somewhat arbitrary, and we decided to go with /r/ for English on Wikipedia because it's a more recognizable letter than . That's common practice when there's no need to be more precise, as in a dictionary. If you want to indicate a specific physical pronunciation, you use [brackets]. [r] is a trill, as in Spanish perro or Welsh English r. is a flap, as in Spanish pero or Irish English r (or Canadian dd in ladder—yes, I realize these aren't exactly the same).  is the non-trilled or -flapped sound you as a Canandian use for r. So basically, yes, it would be  if we were transcribing a Canadian accent rather than just the word, but with /r/ we're not specifying any particular pronunciation, and the transcription can be used equally well by Welsh, Irish, or Canadians.
 * Hm, well the thing is there's different kinds of Canadian accents; at the moment I'm living in the Maritimes, famous for a very "hard" r-sound, though maybe that's an issue of the preceding vowel/diphthong I'm not certain; it's as distinct at the Bostonian "parked my car in Harvard yard" thing, though different; my friends from back west point it out to me all teh time that Iv'e picked it up. In the way I remember, and still pronounce I think, the 'r' in Victoria is barely there, it's almost swallowed as in "o(r)ia", more of a series of vowels, a "long diphthong" than with any discernible consonant; older, established Victorians, or their offspring, especially upper class, would be much more ilke a British pronuncation with a distinct "r" and probably a very pronounced "o". too...well, depending on which kind of Brit, that is (upper class, older-descent Victorians are almost invariably British, or influenced by their one-time dominance there).  The remaining issue is if there is a standard Canadian, or even WEstern Canadian/BC English pronunciation; I can tell you one thing - transposing Ontarian pronunc iations into BC is not authentic, and it's Ontario English that has been used to define "standard Canadian".  A Torontonian sticks out like a sore thumb, or used to (now they've overrun the place, the Lower Mainland anyway) and the older BC accents are now submerged or treated as "hick" - and rarely have ben documented by linguists, who seem to want to look at things on national lines and follow the Canadian political dictum that "all English Canadians are the same", which we're not. I'm not bitching at you, just telling it like it is (though I am bitching).  Accents on Vancouver Island are distinct from those in the Canyon or the Cariboo or West Kootenay or Okanagan; that they've never been studied is partly due to a political non-agenda about the supposed lack of worthwhile local realities and the importance of forging a single national identity/culture.  To this day, though, I can pick out someone from Vernon, and I can guarantee you that Victorians just don't sound like Lower Mainlanders....Skookum1 (talk) 15:37, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The other sounds are similar. They're defined according to base words. If the Van of Vancouver is pronounced like the noun van, then the transcription is correct, regardless of the exact pronunciation by any one person. However, if it's pronounced vaughan, then we've made an error. Same for the cou: if that's pronounced as in cue, then we have it wrong. However, if it's like bill and coo, then it's fine the way it is. kwami (talk) 21:50, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * But an American saying "van" is different than a Canadian, or one of various kinds of Canadians, saying "van". So how's that work?  An Ameriacn saying "Vancouver" tends to have something like "Vayincouver"...I studied "Standard American English", which is a formal system developed by speech/diction teachers to "break" our Canadian accents, and examples liek "character" were brought up with that same "chayiarcter, with the IPA "ae" symbol used for that; is it an un-dipthongized sound?  Because it should have no "twang" in it......(Ontarians on the other hand drawl it a diffrent way, kind of hanging on the 'n').Skookum1 (talk) 15:37, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Skookum1, you were obviously listening to a Southerner who diphthonizes [æ] to [æə]. A "Standard American" pronounces IPA [æ] as in 'bat', 'cat', and 'bad' generally just like a Canadian--this is not one of the distinctions between our dialects.  It's a monophthong and is found in the first syllable of 'Vancouver'.
 * (Besides, isn't "Victoria's IPA" something silky and lacey?) (Sorry, couldn't resist that one.)  (Taivo (talk) 18:18, 29 January 2009 (UTC))


 * Skookum, our IPA transcription is intended to be insensitive to differences like the one you mentioned. The question to ask of anyone is, Do they pronounce the Van of Vancouver the same as the noun van ? If so, the transcription is correct. If generally yes but some people are exceptions, then our transcription does not cover their dialect, and we should note this on the key itself. (An example of the latter is the difference between the a of bad and the a of lad, which we don't distinguish but which in Oz they do.) kwami (talk) 18:38, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Gumuz
Today you have changed the Gumuz language article to the effect that it is a language isolate. All the cited sources on the page (as far as I know) agree that it is a Nilo-Saharan language, although admittedly some doubt the classification together with the Koman languages as Komuz. Anyway, the claim that Gumuz is an isolate needs to be supported by some kind of reference. Do you have anything along these lines? Otherwise I would have to assume that you are submitting original research. Please advise! Best wishes, Landroving Linguist (talk) 15:51, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Dimmendaal and Blench reject Gumuz as Nilo-Saharan. Reworded to "possibly NS". kwami (talk) 23:06, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the references on Dimmendaal and Blench. With these, I think the article is fine as it stands right now. Landroving Linguist (talk) 16:20, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

On the same topic, I noticed that you amended the number of Gumuz speakers in Ethiopia from 120,424 to 120,000. Was there a reason other than a preference for round numbers? I only ask because the 2007 Ethiopian census states that there are 159,418 members of the Gumuz ethnicity which sounds like it could be the right number -- but you might have a better source. Especially because it's likely that not all Gumuz are competent in their mother language. (And no, I'm not being sarcastic here; I just noticed that possible reading of what I wrote.) -- llywrch (talk) 06:06, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * No, no source. I was just rounding off a ridiculously over-precise number. kwami (talk) 06:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. I just hoped you might have access to a source I didn't. - llywrch (talk) 06:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

reminder
remainder of List of Tibeto-Burman languages. Complete Bodish/Tibetic. kwami (talk)

Tibeto-Burman
At the Burmese language infobox, why do you keep putting "Tibeto-Burman" in parentheses? AFAIK it's not a controversial group, and even if it were, parenthesizing it without an explanation as to what parentheses mean is just confusing. —Angr 11:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, sorry, I didn't notice you had reverted me. I just made the same edit twice as I referred to the article.


 * Per Van Driem, Shafer, &c., there's nothing defining TB that distinguishes it from ST. (Other than paraphyletically, with TB simply defined as ST minus Chinese.) So in their conception, giving a genealogy of ST → TB → X would be like saying Germanic is in the Indo-Germanic branch of Indo-European. But of course Matisoff et al. are the dominant model, so we need to list both ST and TB.


 * There's also a lot of redundancy between the ST and TB articles, and you need to read both to understand one. They could be completely reworked, but I wonder if it might not be better to merge them, since they cover 90% of the same material. kwami (talk) 11:40, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, but still I don't think the average reader of Burmese language is going to understand all that just from parentheses in the infobox. People are just going to wonder why the parens are there. And ST → TB → ... → Burmese is still the standard view, whatever its difficulties. —Angr 12:26, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Why are all these parens around Tibeto-Burman in the language templates? It makes no sense. Tibeto-Burman is widely accepted as a valid node--I know of no one who really questions this. Parens around it are confusing, but I'm finding them everywhere. The last time I made a Tibeto-Burman article I know they weren't there. When did you insert them? Or someone else? They should be removed because they imply that Tibeto-Burman is somehow debatable (which it isn't). (Taivo (talk) 12:40, 31 January 2009 (UTC))


 * Angr just asked that question above. I won't argue if you want to revert them. kwami (talk) 12:43, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I wrote this comment before I saw Angr's question above. Sorry  (Taivo (talk) 14:21, 31 January 2009 (UTC))

Hello
FYI, uploaded File:Languenglexpandedtest.jpg, since it appears the current image omisses (is that a word? correction: omits) some rather relevant language family divisions (or so it seems to me) and languages. While it can never be wholly accurate (to a pixel), this could help possible future editors. Hope the enlarged caption is big enough ( with 78 possible colors), looking at the language families template you have constructed :-). As you can see from the image, I'm no linguist, though I have some strange notions (I guess) of it. I wouldn't dream up to finish and push up this one. Dreg743 (talk) 12:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Chinese Language Classification Issue
You seem to have reclassified several languages as "Sinitic", rather than "Sino-Tibetan", and created a new "Sinitic Languages" article. When you make changes of this magnitude, you need to supply ample references and discuss on article talk pages. It appears that you have not done so, and many of your changes have been reverted. I'm not saying that any of your changes are wrong, as I have no idea, but you need to follow Wikipedia guidelines before changing these articles.--Danaman5 (talk) 22:25, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for warning me. This is standard terminology, not a reclassification, so I'll be restoring the articles. kwami (talk) 22:30, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Do you have reliable sources that you can cite stating that this is standard terminology? If you do, you should cite them. Otherwise, people will continue to revert you.--Danaman5 (talk) 23:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, and when I say "cite", I mean put an inline citation right after the information you add, so that people can directly check your references. If you use a non-inline citation, it makes it more difficult.--Danaman5 (talk) 23:23, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

3RR
Well I adjusted the format of the diagram to its present form, and then you reverted. But yes, neither of us should violate the 3RR, and I don't want you to get blocked. Considering I have compromised the Merriam-Webster dictionary with you, you should probably compromise the diagram. The diagram is in the exact same format except that Bai is on the bottom branch instead of the top, but convey the same meaning (branch of Sinitic but it isn't classified under Chinese).--TheLeopard (talk) 08:11, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh knock it off. I provided a better dictionary entry, which you falsely attributed. Going with a superior source is hardly a sacrifice. The position of Bai in the cladogram is fine, but you've messed up the list: Chinese dialects should go under Chinese, not under Bai. (And of course it is also not appropriate to have Bai under unclassified Chinese dialects, as you had earlier.) I added a clean-up tag; if you don't take care of it, I'll restore the last straightforward version. kwami (talk) 08:30, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but your tone of voice is quite inappropriate when speaking to someone. "Better dictionary entry...superior source" well that is a matter of opinion isn't it.  I wasn't aware there is an enforcing rule that says we prefer Oxford English Dictionary over Merriam-Webster in Wikipedia.  Plus, your reference of Oxford dictionary simply has (OED) behind the citation, without given full reference to the dictionary or an electronic source.


 * But, to get back to the clean up tag you added behind Unclassified Chinese. So, you want me to put Unclassified Chinese behind Chinese this time, is it?  I can place it behind Chinese, but put Bai on the bottom .  There is no legitimate reason why we can't have Bai at the bottom, under Unclassified Chinese; it isn't "classified" under "Unclassified Chinese".  Readers can clearly tell Unclassified Chinese and Bai are different primary branches.  Thank you.--TheLeopard (talk) 15:43, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * My tone reflects your behavior. You're being obstinate. Yes, the OED is a superior dictionary to Webster's online whatever. And more importantly, it gave a fuller etymology, which was the whole point of the citation.


 * Of course Chinese dialects should be listed under Chinese, not just "this time" but every time. And of course classified languages should not go under unclassified languages. Is that somehow a difficult concept for you? kwami (talk) 19:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Stokoe
''Can you give an example of a tab or sig that you think is not iconic? They are all transparently iconic to me. kwami (talk) 02:20, 8 February 2009 (UTC)''
 * What you consider "tranparently iconic" is original research. For example, '×' has no iconic relation to "contact". What matters here is how Stokoe saw it, and he did not consider them to necessarily be iconic. And there is no source that identifies them as all iconic. Ward3001 (talk) 02:24, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course x is iconic for touch/contact, at least in the US. In instruction guides, for example, 'x' marks where two parts come together. Are you really saying that the symbols are arbitrary, and it's just coincidence that every single one of them makes intuitive sense? kwami (talk) 03:02, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * And once again, that's your opinion. Wikipedia requires that editors provide reliable sources for any claims they make in articles, not just their opinions. As I said, what matters on this issue is Stokoe's opinion, and his opinion was that all of them are not necessarily iconic. Whether I consider them arbitrary is irrelevant, just as your opinion is irrelevant. If you want to use the word "iconic", please provide an appropriate source. Ward3001 (talk) 03:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Certain Esperantidos
Sen:espera was, I'm almost positive, put on Wikipedia by the same person who invented it—I haven't found it elsewhere. And it might be the same with Esperant'. The other Esperantidos I believe are genuinely notable, but Wikipedia isn't a place for self-published nonnotable material. Would you please take them back off the article? Jchthys (talk) 02:57, 9 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, Sen:esepera seems completely unnotable, and I removed it. Esperant', however, even if defunct, did not claim to be a serious language reform, but was just a jest. We have quite a few serious proposals, but a lot of Esp-ists like playing with language, so it's nice to have a couple language games like Esperant' (it's also not clear to me that that's what Universal really is) and literary derivatives like Arcaicam as well. kwami (talk) 07:06, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Tatar language
Hey, Kwami. There's a situation going on at Tatar language that I'm a bit frustrated with. There's an editor with a serious Islamic POV trying to insist that [h] arose in Tatar because of the word "Allah" and that [h] was lost in Tatar because the Soviets were atheists. I've violated 3RR two days in a row now trying to fix this. But he doesn't discuss the issue on the Talk page, just gives Edit Summaries that say "my way is better", "this is fact", etc. He doesn't use the Talk page (or even read it as far as I can tell). Thanks. (Taivo (talk) 15:16, 9 February 2009 (UTC))


 * Since the POVer is not signing in, I protected the page. kwami (talk) 19:20, 9 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Kwami. I don't mind discussing the issue with him, but it takes two to discuss.  (Taivo (talk) 19:21, 9 February 2009 (UTC))

Maltese people
Please help. User:Pietru il-Boqli is extensively edit warring, and keeps trying to add an anti-Arabic and anti-Libyan POV into the article, as well as a nasty habit of personal attacks. I've tried to talk with him on his talk page - he deleted it. I've tried to talk to him by edit summary - he carried on reverting to his version. I've finally managed to get him to talk on the article talk page, but even now, he's still reverting, and not listening to what I'm saying or responding to my points. Your help would be greatly appreciated. 78.149.184.232 (talk) 16:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Entirely scurrilous accusations. An over-zealousness in removing poor edits, possibly, not pushing anti-Arab propaganda, certainly not. The article's integrity was simply being maintained. את אמא כל כך שמנה, היא יושבת ליד כולם (talk) 16:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
 * When I made an edit to fix a link to the Libyan-Malta relations article, which involved switching round the words "Libya" and "Malta" so that the link would work (rendering Libya as the first word), you reverted telling me you were noting my "agenda". You also have been persistent to add in WP:UNDUE comments about how Malta turned its back on Libya, in a section which was supposed to be about historical acconts of the Maltese ethnicity. You also continued to revert my edits to the language section, without specifying a single thing that was wrong with it, despite the fact I asked you literally a dozen times - why? - because I talked about the connection of Maltese to Arabic in it? 78.149.184.232 (talk) 16:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
 * My views on Maltese' Arabic heritage are clearly documented on the Maltese language talkpage. I do not support the mixed language classification nor any of the more bizarre alternatives. You are grasping at straws, anon. את אמא כל כך שמנה, היא יושבת ליד כולם (talk) 16:21, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Then why revert my version, if you accept it comes from Arabic? 78.149.184.232 (talk) 16:23, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Your revision contributed nothing of quality that the endorsed version did not, in fact, it is less suited (on a purely factual/stylistic level) to the article. את אמא כל כך שמנה, היא יושבת ליד כולם (talk) 16:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The article is about the Maltese people (and thus their use of the language and languages - including the history of it related to them) - it is not about technicalities of the Maltese language that belong there. I am not discussing this with you anymore anyway, since you seem to be a troll, and maybe even a sock, based on your attacks, your lack of understanding of the rules, your block log, and your POV-pushing. Kwamikagami and Angr have both been notified of you - we shall watch what happens now - unless of course you decide to attempt to discuss (I doubt you will). 78.149.184.232 (talk) 16:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (Would it be fruitful to check whether the anon is a sock? It seems probable) את אמא כל כך שמנה, היא יושבת ליד כולם (talk) 16:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Pietru, IMHO you're likely to be a sock of User:Iamandrewrice, gathering from your anti-arabic bias. In fact, a checkuser may be necessary. 78.149.184.232 (talk) 16:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No such bias exists within me; I welcome anything that will put your mind at rest over my being a sock. However your anonymity and attitude lead me to believe you are an individual bent on poisoning this project. Reconsider your actions on Wikipedia. את אמא כל כך שמנה, היא יושבת ליד כולם (talk) 16:33, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm really tired of all the idiocy over Malta. Anon., it would help if you bothered to sign it. kwami (talk) 19:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I made an account before but I forgot the password. I'll make another one though, but please help with the situation. The page has now been protected after I asked Angr to intervene, and I'm waiting for him to pass comment on the page, and hope you will too. 78.149.184.232 (talk) 20:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)


 * But both of you are being ridiculous with your edit warring, so I doubt either of us will pay much attention to what you have to say as long as all you're doing is reverting each other. Bring up the changes you want to make on the talk page. There are other people than Pietru watching the article. kwami (talk) 22:42, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
 * FYI, the anon has been uncovered to be User:Iamandrewrice. we are a marvelous Machine (talk) 13:03, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Monobook.js
The code goes in your .js file, not .css. All you need to add is “importScript('User:Nohat/IPA.js'); // User:Nohat/IPA.js” (the commented link after the slashes lets Nohat use what links here to see who is using his code). —Michael Z. 2009-02-12 02:59 z 


 * Ah, there we go. Thanks. kwami (talk) 03:16, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Maltese language
Thanks for the page protection at Maltese language. (Taivo (talk) 06:45, 12 February 2009 (UTC))

"Wenzhou Dialect"
Although I very much appreciate the work you have done on the article Wenzhou dialect it is a fact that it is much more widely known as "Wenzhou Dialect" (google hits over 800, whereas for "Oujiang Chinese" there are only 3 hits). We can clarify that it, in fact, is a language by most linguistic definitions. But it is not necessary to call the language a name that most people do not identify it with. This is in accordance with Wikipedia's policy on "most commonly used name". Colipon+(T) 05:24, 13 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm working on very limited sources, but isn't the label "Wenzhou" also used for the Oujiang dialect of Wenzhou? I was under the impression that was the purpose of "Oujiang", to clarify that the entire lect is being discussed. Wouldn't calling the whole lect "Wenzhou" be a bit like calling all of Wu "Shanghainese"? That was once common usage too. Common usage is a good guideline to follow, but so is clarity, and sometimes they conflict. There's been similar debate over what to do with Cantonese, and it can be a thorny problem. kwami (talk) 08:08, 13 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah but for something that's so prominently known as "Wenzhou Dialect" or even "Wenzhonese", it is simply unreasonable to subscribe a more "proper" classification to it. Wenzhou and Oujiang are pretty much the same thing. The Oujiang linguistic region is only really Wenzhou anyway. If you want a proper classification scheme, then have "Oujiang Chinese" as the parent article of Wenzhou dialect. But "Wenzhou dialect" is a very commonly known idea. There aren't going to be any other articles on the subject. So we should use the name by which it's commonly known. Not everything can be labeled with their "proper" names. That's like calling a tiger by its latin binomial name because you might confuse it with cats. Same with "Shanghainese dialect". It's known as simply "Shanghainese" to almost everyone, at least in the English language. We are going to have to come up with a standard. Although I appreciate the work you have done, please consult in the talk page next time you attempt a move. Thanks, and all the best. Colipon+(T) 16:52, 13 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Another fact. I was in Wenzhou this summer. If you're ever in Wenzhou and you ask if they understand "Oujiang Chinese" (Oujianghua), they wouldn't know what you're talking about. In fact, no one in China would know what you're taking about. You ask if they speak "Wenzhouhua", for which the proper translation is "Wenzhou Dialect". Colipon+(T) 16:55, 13 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, will move. Thanks. kwami (talk) 18:25, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: Haumea
Does living in the state of Hawaii and using the pronunciation at Help:Pronunciation respelling key help a tad? It's pronounced like "how-MAY-uh". Hau is a syllable (pronounced like the word "how"), and is proceeded by "mea", pronounced "MAY-uh". Cheers. obento musubi  06:14, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yup, that helps. Since Brown's students pronounce it with four syllables, I'll add both. kwami (talk) 06:30, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Featured article
Dear Kwamikagami, I want to ask whether article Spirit rover & rings of Saturn can be candidated as featured article? Thanks. Ayrenz (talk) 11:13, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Not as long as there are citation and improvement tags on them. Also, you shouldn't have external links in the text; these should all be moved to footnotes or references. But I'm not really the one to ask. The FA requirements seem rather arbitrary, incomplete, and inconstant to me. Took me months to get my first FA through, cuz the reviewers couldn't decide among themselves what was proper formatting. Supposedly it's not always so difficult, but I was soured on the whole thing. kwami (talk) 20:03, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Dictionary transcription
You're right, I can't see OED's schwi. I think it has something to do with fonts. What's worse is that I noticed in [this edit that the two boxes you placed aren't even recognized as two separate characters when I do an in-page search. — [[User:Aeusoes1|Æµ§œš¹]]  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  21:04, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I guess the strikethrough code is our best bet for now. I think at some point in the past I argued against it but that was regarding WP transcription convention at WP:IPA for English.  Why does English have to be so complicated? — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  01:41, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay. Easy enough to change again with AWB if we think of s.t. better. kwami (talk) 01:47, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Linguistics
Hi, do you have Linguistics on your watchlist? A user is trying to redefine linguistics according to what she wishes it meant, and Garik and I are having difficulty persuading her she's acting against consensus as there are only two of us at the moment. More contributors to the discussion are needed! —Angr 09:53, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * No, I haven't been watching it. I reverted Supriya on principal, and just added my 2¢ on Talk. kwami (talk) 10:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

It should be principle rather than principal. 122.162.170.198 (talk) 07:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC) (Supriya)


 * "I reverted you on principal without reading this discussion or much of what you wrote, as you need to resolve your issues here rather than just edit warring" Ah, you're a role model for us all. I'm writing that response down somewhere... Ling.Nut (talk&mdash;WP:3IAR) 10:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Burmish
I think it makes sense to not include Burmese dialects where they were. But they should be listed somewhere, and the citations need to be appropriate. For example, it might make sense to move the Burmese dialects to a new article 'Burmese Dialects' or something, but if this was done we would need to have the relevant citations also moved. Tibetologist (talk) 11:09, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

How do you think this is for a solution. Tibetologist (talk) 14:06, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Perfect. kwami (talk) 20:54, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

/r/
Fair enough! I did wonder. It does seem strange for the compromise to be different to the existing literature, but I appreciate Wikipedia needs to find a middle ground. Hope no-one was offended! Scyrene (talk) 01:34, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

A little reading material
Check your inbox! Knepflerle (talk) 11:48, 22 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Yup. So it would seem. Thanks for that. Now that Shrub is gone, I forget that there are other people like him. kwami (talk) 21:41, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Did you ever travelled to Pakistan
Ever you ever been to Pakistan. User:Yousaf465 (talk)


 * Nope, never been to South Asia at all. Some day I'll get there ... Why do you ask? kwami (talk) 08:12, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

You have did on your user page. Seems to be frequent flyer. As far our national airline goes "Great people to fly with". So If you ever come to Pakistan remember to visit the Lahore and Karachi. Lahore for it's historical building,and Karachi for it's beach.User:Yousaf465 (talk)


 * No, I've never had the Pakistani flag on my residence section. (But there are several places I want to see.) kwami (talk) 04:02, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You should have it now.User:Yousaf465 (talk)


 * You mean I should be able to see it on my page, or that I should put it on my page? It is not currently on my page, and I've never lived in Pakistan, so it would be a lie to put it there. kwami (talk) 10:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Iberian-Canarian Inscription Censorship?
Dear Kwa, please look at the reasson that Trigaramus give to close this page. The page has uncontested information .The reference that Trigaranus propose to close does not apply.

Iberian-Guanche inscriptions page was heavily edited anyway and Canarian-Iberian scripts IS NOT THE SAME PAGE. Please undelete the new "Iberian-Canarian page"

Trigaranus may just pursuing censorship,because a conflict of interests(This is not usual to say,but what else is the reason?).Unless ,he is persecuting Antonio Arnaiz-Villena because a Palestinian paper he wrote and which created a hunt against A A-V years ago .This is not the Wikipedia policy.

In addition,AA-V has nothing to do with this page and Trigaranus in his discussions is obsesed with him.AA-V is only marginally quoted.But his name should be removed from this page ,if this is a problem for Wikipedia.

The discussion for Keep or Delete was balanced.

I would ask you to offer a solution for this conflict.

Iberomesornix has put an altogether different page (Iberian-Canarian) to Iberian Guanche one. This is your argument for your actions.

I would stronly ask you to look a bit more in detail in the Iberomesornix Iberian-Canarian discussion .Iberom. clearly shows with direct links that Trigaranus reaseons to close the page are not true--Virginal6 (talk) 10:41, 25 February 2009 (UTC)


 * This has already been discussed, and no merit was found in your accusations of censorship. I will not second-guess those findings. If you wish to contest the deletion, please take it to WP:RFA or WP:RFAR, where the entire admin community can evaluate your arguments. kwami (talk) 20:15, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Basque
Can you slow down a touch pls? Making Basque Vasconic rather than isolate is fairly fringe. Mainstream basque studies accepts aquitanian as the direct ancestor of all modern dialects of basque - which means basque is still an isolate. Akerbeltz (talk) 02:49, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * [edit conflict] Zuberoan is not mutually intelligible, which means we're dealing with a small family. Japanese was once considered an isolate too, but is now considered a family for the same reason. Also, Aquitanian was spoken contemporaneously with Basque in the Middle Ages, so not all of Aquitanian can be considered ancestral. Of course, the question would then be whether contemporary Aquitanian was a dialect of Basque, which I'm not sure anyone can answer. kwami (talk) 03:00, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I dunno... the whole page is... off centre somehow. Most items are dealt with on the Basque language page or the Aquitanian page. The Vasconic family thing is very fringe and the way it's worded at the moment makes it look mainstream. Given how other fringe stuff is relegated to subsections, I'd be tempted to remove the page but even if not, it needs re-writing. Akerbeltz (talk) 02:54, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Sure, rewrite away. It isn't fringe to cover lack of mutual intelligibility between all Basque lects. It also states quite clearly in the intro that when Basque is considered a single language, it's an isolate. kwami (talk) 03:00, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok will do. They are all mutually intelligible, at least as much as Glasgow English and Cockney are. Don't trust Ethnologue on this one. Even as a learner speaker I can make sense of Zuberoan enough to get by. I'll try and find a source that overrides Ethnologue. Aquitanian and Basque are virtually identical bar a few predictable sound changes that were calculated to have happened even before the Aquitanian inscriptions were found (linke -m- < -nb- eg seme < senbe). If we ever find a love poem in Aquitanian, it'll just sound like quirky old fashioned Basque, so close are the two. The thing that I'd really like to see is the source that claims Aquitanian survived into the middle ages. I've *never* read that one. :) Akerbeltz (talk) 12:29, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I can't find anything to back up that claim, so it was very likely false. And given the scant number of transcriptions, we probably can't tell if Aquitanian was a single language or not. So, given the limits of our data, yes, it would appear that Aquitanian is more or less the same as Old Basque. (Trask says it was "more or less" directly ancestral, but what exactly he means by that he doesn't say.) The difference between a Basque isolate and a small Basque/Vasconic family would then depend on whether you consider Souletin to be a separate language. If you as a partial speaker of Batua can understand conversation (not just make yourself understood), then that would certainly mean that it is a dialect, and this article is redundant and misnamed. Would you say the difference is less than that of "languages" such as Castillian, Portuguese, and Catalan? I mean, I can get by in Italian from my learner's knowledge of Spanish; if Souletin is a dialect of Basque, does that mean that Italian, Spanish, and Catalan are dialects of a single Western Romance language?


 * This started out as an attempt to find a better use of the name Vasconic (which I occasionally see in the literature) than Vennemann's stuff, and also as a place to summarize our articles on Aquitanian and the dialects. kwami (talk) 12:50, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Which sounds like something worth doing, since Vasconic does kick around. Let me mull this one over?
 * The problem with establishing ancestry beyond doubt is that for now we have data in the same area that is virtually identical. The only problem is, one dataset is tiny. It's a bit like trying to convict on the basis of partial DNA fingerprinting. There's nothing in Aquitanian that would make you sit up and say, hey, this can't be the ancestor of Basque. But we just have very little of it. Which is why I think Traks was hedging his bets a bit not to fall into the random speculation camp. And given the size of Roman Aquitania, who knows what may have been going on on the fringes. Akerbeltz (talk) 12:57, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Forgot to answer the Zuberoan thing. It's closer than that. What throws people initially is the /y/ and the French /ʁ/ that Zuberoan has borrowed. It's one of those that you can "listen yourself into" with a bit of time. It's much closer than Catalan and Italian and Spanish are. Akerbeltz (talk) 13:00, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It looks like I stand corrected, then. Still, it would be nice if we had a ref demonstrating the degree of intelligibility. (The Basque dialects article is nice, but doesn't really address that issue.) kwami (talk) 13:14, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It happens ;) - I know the dialects article is hugely incomplete, there's just never enough time to do it all! A more detailed description of the dialects is on my to-do list though. Akerbeltz (talk) 15:43, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Let me know what you mull over. If Aquitanian is not attested as continuing as a side branch to Basque, and there is no evidence of dialectical diversity within Aquitanian, and all Basque dialects are mutually intelligible (well, maybe not Biscayan-Souletin, but as a dialect chain—but certainly if even Biscayan and Souletin are mutually intelligible!), then it becomes very difficult to justify an article on "Vasconic lanugages". kwami (talk) 22:36, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

block warning
actually i didn't violate 3rr, nor its intent. and that you are an administrator enforcing a viewpoint on an article that you contribute too is very very worrisome, seems a bit coi. wonder if that's cause for administrative review, guess i should research that.--Buridan (talk) 01:59, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * You're right. You violated 9RR, not 3.


 * I don't take threats kindly, even less than your bullshit. I don't contribute to that article. You've lost any goodwill you may have had with me. Present something rational for discussion. If you're not capable of that, go away. If you continue to edit war, I will block you. kwami (talk) 02:03, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

suprya
Thought you'd want to know that she's back at her reverting game again on linguistics —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.136.120.40 (talk) 07:28, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Iberian-Guanche crackpot theories
Dear Kwamikagami, are you aware of what is happening in the user and user talk page of user Iberomesornix. I think it is not right what he is doing (specially at he is using my own editions). Specially unproper is the accusation that implies his last paragraph in this edition with the same tall story that they are being prosecuted.

Also seems unproper his victimism claim that "Arnaiz-Villena is probably being prosecuted again" (same edition, some lines above) or his slandering in the  launching legal accusations, saying that a person is being prosecuted by the police (a person that can be easily identified, as against his claim the link is not anonymous as can be seen before Iberomesornix friend (Virginal6) retouched it in this edition) and Iberomesornix makes such a libel without the slightest reference nor proof. And as he claims that a person is an anonymous, when in the link was his name, and when Iberomesornix himself tells alleged personal data of his biography, it is very obvious his lack of sincerity.

I consider that Iberomesornix has broken many WP policies, and I am tired of his disruptive dicussions in that any reliable source is dubious and only part of a dark conspiracy (as the many that critizise the pseudo-scientific linguistic publications of Arnaiz Villena), that any person that wants to delete his articles has a conflict of interests, etc. etc. etc.

Kind Regards. --Dumu Eduba (talk) 11:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * update: At least it looks like Iberomesornix has thought it again and has deleted his unproper comments on his tal page, but if you see the contribs page of the IP with which he did the first time before Spitfire reverted it , we find that this IP claims to be Arnaiz-Villena, and so we may conclude that Iberomesornix is making self-promotion of his own theories, and that Iberomesornix is the one who has a conflict of interest. Irritating. --Dumu Eduba (talk) 12:10, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi. Yes, this does certainly look like garbage. Frankly, I'm not familiar with what is and is not allowed on personal pages; as long as long as it does not contain threats or reveal private information, I thought you could pretty much write whatever you wanted. I'm not following your accusations of "libel" (I doubt someone alleging a conspiracy against them would be considered libelous, just paranoid maybe), nor am I following how Iberomesornix is revealing personal information about other people. Maybe you just need to spell it out more clearly for me? kwami (talk) 19:32, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * How are you concluding that IP 194.224.111.165 is Iberomesornix? kwami (talk) 19:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I think he means that rather amusing crap he wrote on the Talk:Basque language under Tidying this page of a libel page about reporting me. Akerbeltz (talk) 22:23, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * No,Akerbeltz,Dumu Eduba is referring to IP ......is Iberomesornix.In addition,he acuses Iberomesornix being Arnaiz-Villena.I doubt very much that Arnaiz-Villena has given his open identity in Internet .It just may be a joke.Or something else....--Virginal6 (talk) 00:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey, Kwamikagami. Sorry for the delay, I had the so called "real world" business. The answer to what you ask to me is just easy:
 * 1) On march 5th at 11:35 user 194.224.111.165 deletes a section of Iberomesornix talk page, page iin which Iberomesornix is importing and retouching the Iberian-Guanche talk page with editions the same morning.
 * 2) One minute later, Spitfire undoes the deletion and tells to 194.224.111.165 "if you believe the edit was constructive, please ensure that you provide an informative edit summary".
 * 3) At 11.49 user Iberomesornix makes the same deletion and adds an informative edit summary.
 * 4) Additionally consider tath that 194.224.111.265 has made more editions in Iberomesornix talk page in the sense of making an apology of the Iberian-Guanche page, even distorting my own editions, and, if you can access to the log of deleted pages you could find that he added pictures as copyright Arnaiz-Villena (the same that he added later as copyright Honorato Weller but that can be found in Arnaiz-Villena articles such as this.


 * BTW, What about the slandering made by Iberomesornix in the Basque language talk page? I suppose that if in a biography a user makes legal accusations against the biographed person without any reference nor reliable source he would be banned. But Iberomesornix simple says that a person is being prosecuted by police to dismiss his link, does not add any reference, and nothing happens. Iberomesornix is breaking all the rules for this pityful promotion of Arnaiz-Villena fringe science theories. --Dumu Eduba (talk) 18:41, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a bit beside the point, but I just have to share my amusement: you've got to admit that that paper Dumu found is inherently funny. The good man bases his Egyptian-Basque "etymologies" on the Greek names (!) of Egyptian deities and not on the original ones! Is it a bad thing if I'm having genuine fun just because of things like these? Because I'm only a little ashamed. Trigaranus (talk) 18:26, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * ROFL, thank you for that, I needed that laugh. BAKE as a Basque-Iberian root for "peace"? Yeah right... I presume the Romans borrowed the word from the Basques? Right, joke's over, let's move on! Akerbeltz (talk) 18:38, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't feel the least bit guilty laughing at this stuff. But is even this still an issue, or have they given up? Should we have someone run a user check? I hate to pile something more on their plate if we won't need to use it. kwami (talk) 21:13, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be useful to run checkuser. Maybe it all clears up, perhaps even with the suspected sockpuppets turning out to be respectable users individually and independently focused on these issues in their own rights; still, I'd say chances are there will be a different result. Trigaranus (talk) 16:51, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Kwa do not be that impatient .I am opening my own page and you will have me for long and perhaps for Wikipedia better and more contrasted contents in certain one-sided articles opinion--Virginal6 (talk) 21:32, 9 March 2009 (UTC).

IBERIAN-CANARIAN SCRIPTS
I have put up a request for arbitration because of your deletion. --Iberomesornix (talk) 19:02, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * My deletion? I doubt you'll get a different answer this time, but go ahead. kwami (talk) 19:21, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * You advised me to go for Arbitration:if thisis not the correct way you should not send me there.

Anyway,thank you for wishing me good luck? --Iberomesornix (talk) 20:03, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, not quite. I'm not advising you to go, merely telling you that if you wish to contest the deletion, then Arbitration is the way to go about it. But I highly doubt you'll be successful. I think the article is nonsense, and if you do go to arbitration, I may weigh in on why it should stay deleted. kwami (talk) 20:11, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Reply.
No hard feelings. I think everyone gets defensive when they have a POV they're defending. Alan16 (talk) 08:51, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Semiprotection of decimal
Hey Kwamikagami, would you consider shortening the protection of Decimal a little? The vandalism doesn't look severe enough for semiprotection—I counted about 16 instances of vandalism during the past three months, which is easily manageable without protection. Also, the page hadn't been protected before, so I don't think it was necessary to go straight to indefinite. Maybe something like a couple weeks semi would be better here? Just something you may want to consider, it's your call all the way. Take care. --Bongwarrior (talk) 02:42, 7 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it was probably just a random string of recent vandalism. I'll unprotect now. kwami (talk) 02:46, 7 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks a lot, appreciate it. --Bongwarrior (talk) 02:50, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Usko-Mediterranean
Hi, I unprotected Usko-Mediterranean languages because it was deleted by WP:PROD, not WP:AFD, so re-creation is allowed. I've got it on my watchlist, too. —Angr 18:48, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Ural-Altaic
Hi, it appears that you have moved the Ural-Altaic languages article to the wrong kind of hyphen article. The ndash hyphen '–' is not used when connecting words in English expressions such as Ural-Altaic; the normal hyphen '-' remains in use. The ndash hyphen is used for ranges such as "10–100". I suggest that you revert this move immediately. --Vuo (talk) 23:09, 7 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I just checked the MOS. Uralo-Altaic would be hyphenated, but Ural–Altaic would take the en dash. I'll put my moves on hold if you wish to bring this up at MOS. kwami (talk) 23:11, 7 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I gotta agree with Vuo. In all linguistics usages, these forms are hyphenated, not n-dashed. The only exception which I have occasionally seen is when two hyphenated forms are combined, such as combining Trans-Fly with Bulaka River, you sometimes get Trans-Fly[en dash]Bulaka River in order to indicate that Bulaka River is on a higher order connection than Trans-Fly. I don't really care what MOS you're looking at, but linguistic usage prevails in my book.  (Taivo (talk) 00:35, 8 March 2009 (UTC))


 * Check out the usage in Ethnologue--it's not en-dash, but hyphens. En-dashes are also ridiculous since they are not easy to type. Use them in mathematical formulas, but not in connected English text or in hyphenated vocabulary items.  (Taivo (talk) 00:44, 8 March 2009 (UTC))


 * Well, that's a larger issue than linguistics. The MOS has decided that we should go with proper typography rather than ease of input. (We can of course also type with hyphens and leave it to a bot to correct.) Anyway, I've asked over there specifically about Ural-Altaic, as that one does seem a bit ambiguous. kwami (talk) 00:53, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * As far as linguistic usage goes, there's no ambiguity. Linguistic entities are spelled with hyphens, not with en-dashes.  Check out any linguistics text and you'll find hyphens nearly exclusively.  I don't know who got the wild hair about en-dashes, but they are inappropriate in established linguistic names (of which Ural-Altaic, Amto-Musan, Na-Dene, etc. are all examples).  (Taivo (talk) 01:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC))


 * I've put exactly that question to the MOS. kwami (talk) 01:24, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Good. I really get torqued when non-linguists (the "MOS") start dictating how linguists should do things.  It's just another version of the "post-structural linguists" telling the pros what linguistics is :p  We're misunderstood enough as it is ("How many languages do you speak?")  (Taivo (talk) 02:44, 8 March 2009 (UTC))


 * I'm proudly sesquilingual.


 * Or is it semilingual? kwami (talk) 05:30, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Or is it sesquilingually semilingual? ;)  (Taivo (talk) 05:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC))


 * Yeah, that's it! Three languages! kwami (talk) 05:50, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Let me put in my two cents' worth: The requirement for n-dashes is an instance of prescriptivism, as in prescriptive grammar. I think practical utility is a much more important consideration than formulaic correctness. I doubt very many readers ever notice when an n-dash is used rather than a hyphen or are even aware of the existence of both. I think the requirement for n-dashes in certain formations is a harmless conceit as long as it doesn't interfere with the use of the encyclopedia. In this case, it does. Practically no one has an n-dash key on their keyboard and only a few know where to find one. This is proved by the fact that the editors who replace hyphens almost always use the "& n d a s h ;" command > "–", which makes text harder to read for editors, rather than a "physical" n-dash "–". Evidently, it is not widely known that the physical n-dash even exists. Because the n-dash character is a hangover from the print industry, and no one has it on their keyboards, everyone who types in a search is going to use the hyphen, e.g. "Eskimo-Aleut languages" rather than "Eskimo–Aleut languages". The result is that every single search of this kind is going to bring up the "Redirected from Eskimo-Aleut languages" message or the like. The readers feels this as a slap in the face, wondering "what did I do wrong?" S/he may then scrutinize the typed message to see if it was mistyped and lose time figuring out an n-dash was required or, more likely, giving up in frustration. By this time precious seconds have been wasted, the reader's chain of concentration is likely broken, and their reaction to Wikipedia begins to turn from positive to negative, because we are not anticipating their predictable reactions. If it was possible to devise a fix whereby searches using hyphens automatically produced the article with n-dash without the "Redirected" message, we would again have a harmless conceit, especially if this fix was automatic and did not require a further effort by the editor, but it would, IMHO, be a waste of time, which is what is scarcest on this planet. In sum, the MOS guideline, if it requires n-dashes in titles, should be changed. Most Wikipedia guidelines are not rigid, recommending that common sense be used and the particular situation considered. If this isn't so here (Kwami, could we have a link to the guideline?), one would want to know why not. Why would this particular bit of typographical traditionalism be allowed to run roughshod over common sense and practicality? Please let's revert these articles to their previous locations. Regards, VikSol (talk) 08:59, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It's at WP:MOS. Please copy your comments there, or if you don't mind, I will.


 * I often find the en dash helpful—if I am not familiar with a name, the type of dash parses it for me, which can be a great help. (For the pattern AB-CD, you can't easily tell A(BC)D from (AB)(CD) without differentiating hyphens from en dashes, and language-family names use both patterns.) And it doesn't really matter if we're sometimes sloppy with using hyphens instead, because once the name is established, disambiguation is no longer necessary. As for " & n d a s h ; " messing up screen readers, there are bots crawling the pedia to rectify that very issue, though perhaps not as many as there should be. However, the problem with constantly redirecting our readers is perhaps a more serious concern. We could set up bots to take care of that, I suppose.


 * As for UA itself, "Uralic–Altaic" would clearly fall under the MOS en-dash guideline, "Uralo-Altaic" clearly does not, but "Ural-Altaic" is unclear to me. kwami (talk) 09:15, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I would be honored if you want to copy my comments to WP:MOS. One further thought: Wikipedia does not generally follow typesetting principles derived from the print industry but remains close to what people type on their computer screens. For example, it puts a line between paragraphs rather than indenting the first line. The purpose of this I think is to maintain editability, i.e. to make it easy for the average user to edit Wikipedia without special knowledge. This is really one of the last holdouts in the computer world to the era of DOS and other user-editable operating systems, which has since been totally eclipsed by systems that freeze out the user and keep him dependent on a handful of corporate monopolies. It's the last glimpse of a world as it might have been. The mere fact that people don't naturally type an n-dash under any circumstances is a sufficient argument against using it, in my opinion. Why spend all this time and effort putting in n-dashes when almost nobody is ever going to notice whether an n-dash or a hyphen was used or not? As I see it, it would be better to remove the use of n-dashes altogether, thereby making the use of dashes/hyphens consistent with the general principle of Wikipedia typography, namely that it's not an imitation of print typesetting but sacrifices some of its refinements in order to maintain direct contact with the average user. All this in a totally non-dogmatic spirit, I hope it's clear. VikSol (talk) 07:15, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Hear, hear! (Taivo (talk) 10:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC))

milliarcsecond
Thanks for spotting that capitalization error; I've fixed some and will fix the rest later. --  Chzz  ►  13:45, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Sea star move
Thank you! Rationality prevails Dmccabe (talk) 01:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC)


 * If you let me know if an edit war starts up on it again, I can take it off my watch list. I have too much on it as it is. kwami (talk) 01:49, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Good work
On sorting through eastern Indonesian languages - hope you dont mind me following and tagging here and there - cheers (nah never too much on a watch list I say btw) SatuSuro 01:34, 11 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Sure, go ahead. Let me know if I made any mistakes. kwami (talk) 01:36, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
 * None in sight - my beef is usually articles with no WP:RS - so I tag em - and also some get through with no project templates on talk pages

- but hey - keep up the good work regardless SatuSuro 01:53, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Breathy voice
Hi, Breathy voice says that some languages "display a three-way consonant contrast (voiced<>breathy voiced<>voiceless), or possibly a four-way consonant contrast (voiced<>breathy voiced<>voiceless (unaspirated)<>voiceless aspirated)" and then goes on to list several languages with a four-way contrast. Do you know of any that make a three-way contrast, and if so, could you add them to the article? I'm interested because one of the arguments in favor of the glottalic theory is the supposed unlikeliness of a language having voiced aspirated (i.e. breathy-voice) stops without also having voiceless aspirated ones. —Angr 17:46, 11 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Not in obstruents that I'm aware of, except in pIE. Of course, the pairing could be due to the Indic languages and others under their influence skewing the statistics, but some Igbo dialects at least also have both. I'll remove the claim until s.o. can find a source.


 * Xhosa has both murmured and ejective plosives. But of course it's in a very different language area.


 * As far as Kelabit goes, languages in that area tend to have slack or stiff voice, which Europeans may have a difficult time hearing. Of course, there's the possibility that pIE had such a contrast too, which has been interpreted as murmur, but if so, it would seem to have disappeared from central Eurasia. kwami (talk) 20:40, 11 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, Blust very clearly states: "Kelabit, an Austronesian language spoken in northern Sarawak, has a typologically rare series of true voice aspirates" (Robert Blust, 2006, "The Origin of the Kelabit Voiced Aspirates: A Historical Hypothesis Revisited" Oceanic Linguistics 45:311). I would say that Blust, and not Ladefoged, is the utter authority on the phonetics of the Austronesian languages. (He cites Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996 in the references.)  (Taivo (talk) 03:23, 21 March 2009 (UTC))


 * That's pretty convincing. Are the other series tenuis and modal voice? kwami (talk) 04:33, 21 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I created a stub at Kelabit language. kwami (talk) 04:51, 21 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, the other two series are voiced and voiceless. (Taivo (talk) 06:17, 21 March 2009 (UTC))

Chechen consonants
One can easily find the Chechen consonant system. Chechen has: f, v, and w. Any Chechen dictionary will show you this from the one by Awde/Galaev or Nichols/Vagapov. Awde has w versus v in words like: drum: watt versus brother: vasha. Both sources have f for words. Nichols has only v (a voiced labiodental fricative and not the approximant w).


 * Dictionaries are not good sources for such judgements, as they often operate on different assumptions. Nichols clearly states that as consonants, [w] and [v] are allophones, though [w] also appears in diphthongs. If you want to posit that they are separate phonemes, you should have a better source than a dictionary. kwami (talk) 23:47, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Even if they are allophones, then we should put around one or both with notes.  The Compendium of the World's Languages has both phonemes as well. Azalea pomp (talk) 23:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Just did. (/f/ as well: it's common practice to paranthesize borrowed or marginal phonemes.) The Compendium is definitely not a very reliable source. We should go with dedicated material when it's available. kwami (talk) 23:52, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The Compendium has "vu" for the 1st class singular marker. It has "way" for the 1st person plural pronoun.  Awde has "vai" for CWL's "way". :/  Are these allophones in free variation, dialect based??  It seems no one is saying...  Since Awde and Galaev I assume are native Chechen speakers, and they would probably be an authority on which allophone was commonly used for w/v for certain words I would imagine. Azalea pomp (talk) 23:56, 11 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It could be free variation: consider Hawaiian, where /w/ is [v] after front vowels, [w] after back vowels, but [v]~[w] after /a/. Or it could be marginally phonemic: perhaps there are foreign borrowings which violate the allophony? Or it could be that these are allophones which are distinct in the authors' ears, perhaps due to biligualism, and therefore a non-phonemic distinction they are comfortable putting in print? It would be nice if Nichols went into more detail. kwami (talk) 00:34, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, I just found the link to Johanna Nichol's Chechen source. It states that /v/ has two allophones.  [v] before front vowels and [w] elsewhere. Azalea pomp (talk) 21:46, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Proto–Indo-Iranian
Kwami, do you have any sort of consensus, guideline or straightforward recommendation to show for your rather pedantic typographical-hyphen article moves? Because if you haven't, I would say you are doing more harm than good. I have never seen "Proto-Indo-European" or "Proto-Indo-Iranian" typeset with two different kinds of hyphens. If you have seen this somewhere, it is still a long shot from satisfying WP:NAME as the most common usage.

Please seek consensus before you do mass edits of this kind. To my mind, this isn't a disaster, it is just very silly, and very pointless. --dab (𒁳) 22:23, 12 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It follows the MOS, and I've seen it for other protolanguages. But revert if you like--I won't object. kwami (talk) 22:25, 12 March 2009 (UTC)


 * With all due respect, Kwami, you can see that I'm not the only linguist objecting to your changing of hyphens to en-dashes. You might want to focus on something else ;)  (Taivo (talk) 00:03, 13 March 2009 (UTC))


 * That's pretty much it. I don't think there are (m)any more. kwami (talk) 00:39, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

thank you. --dab (𒁳) 21:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics
You cited Aboriginals: Webster’s Quotations, Facts and Phrases. Icon Group International, 2008 as a source for the claim that the syllabary in question is an "abugida", without giving a quote or a page number. A title such as that seems to reflect an unlikely source for information on this topic. I am familiar with the published literature on the syllabary and am not aware of such a claim made by a scholar who researches the question. Can you provide more information on your supporting documentation? A generic source of the type you give appears to fall short of Wikipedia's expectations for sourcing. The Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics article is almost completely undocumented, so there is a more general issues here.

I will copy this to Talk:Canadian Aboriginal syllabics so any information that appears in a single place, so if you reply there that would be helpful. Jomeara421 (talk) 23:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It's available on Google Books. Just search for 'abugida'. Granted, it's not much of a source, so I won't object if you reject it. kwami (talk) 00:00, 14 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Ha! Am I quoting a source that's quoting Wikipedia?? The passage on pp 209-210 is annotated "[WP]". kwami (talk) 00:12, 14 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, it quotes the WP article as of 2005. kwami (talk) 00:15, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

For your information
You may be interested in these new categories - Category:Hybrid_languages and Category:Mixed languages and code-switches (since when is a language itself described as a "code switch"?) - this edit and the rest of this new user's contributions. Knepflerle (talk) 14:10, 14 March 2009 (UTC)


 * 'Hybrid languages' may or may not be useful; I deleted the other category and created the categories 'language contact' and 'code-switching'. It's all still a bit of a jumble, and the category 'macaronic language' is grossly over-used (for all code-switching, for example), but hopefully this will help. Feel free to help clean things up if you like. kwami (talk) 22:09, 14 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi. I created the "Mixed languages and code-switches" category based on the idea of Category:Pidgins and creoles, as I saw that there seemed no apparent category for the code-switching articles to come under. If mixed languages and code-switchings are given separate categories, should we not start to separate the pidgin and creole category into two? I agree with you the area seems to be a mess, and I hope that in the coming future, we can strive to sort it out. Licqua (talk) 23:12, 14 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It's not always easy to tell which is a pidgin and which a creole. Often languages where the 'pidgin' appellation has stuck have since become creoles, or they may have become creolized in one or two locations but generally still a pidgin elsewhere. Thus a unified category is not a bad idea. However, the difference between code-switching and mixed languages is rather easier. I think it's also important to avoid the impression that things like Spanglish and "mixed". Categories don't need to be symmetrical. They're purely a practical consideration. kwami (talk) 23:16, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Pashto Transliteration (Romanization) Source on Pashto Page
On the Pashto language page, there is a romanization in use with which I am not familiar. It is nothing like the romanization of the Library of Congress. It is also not sourced. Are you familiar with it? I hope it is not someone's personal romanization. Azalea pomp (talk) 18:47, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I will do some more research and see what I can find. I know that it isn't the Library of Congress transliteration.  It almost seems Albanian-based for some of the letters. Azalea pomp (talk) 03:20, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Indonesian language stubs
I get a little strung out doing the number of adding the project tags and no refs tags have you any idea how many more for the Indonesian region you might be doing so I can at least work out where I come up for a breather? SatuSuro 01:34, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Nothing more for the time being. I want to do Central MP, but not until the new edition of Ethnologue comes online. kwami (talk) 01:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that - youre doing a great job - and it is appreciated - just that when I saw this monrings run on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AlexNewArtBot/IndonesiaSearchResult I thought I ought to check SatuSuro 02:11, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Moons of Jupiter
Hey, I wasn't sure who to contact about this so I chose you because you're the admin who protected the page. I can't edit the page due to my account being too new, but I left a comment at Talk:Moons of Jupiter concerning some information to be added to the article. Would you mind editing the page for me? Thanks! Recognizance (talk) 16:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Looks like a cool article. I unprotected the page for you, since I might not be able to get to it for a while. kwami (talk) 16:43, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry to trouble you, when I took a look at the article, it didn't seem to fit in anywhere since there's nothing about the history/formation. I added it to Galilean moons under members since the history similarly focuses on human events rather than formation. Recognizance (talk) 17:24, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * A good article would have an evolution section to cover such things, & also that Callisto was once part of the resonance. kwami (talk) 23:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Great job. It's collaborative efforts like yours that make Wikipedia so useful. Recognizance (talk) 16:51, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Code-switching
I am one of two editors who have been trading edits on the page Code-switching. If you have interest in the topic, I would most happy to have your opinion on Talk:Code-switching. Cnilep (talk) 03:19, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

pointing
Hi, you often use the terms "pointing" or "vowel pointing" to translate "nikud", which are unfamiliar to me and seem to be inadequate, since nikud consists of lines as well as dots. Are you very attached to this choice or would you be fine with "vowel diacritics"? Dan Pelleg (talk) 22:48, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * (Another question – why did you not include Hebrew cantillation marks as another example of the way diacritics function?) Dan Pelleg (talk) 22:50, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * "Vowel pointing" is the common expression used in English. A typographic "point" isn't necessarily round: commas and apostrophes are "points". From the OED:


 * vowel-point, a sign used to indicate a vowel in certain alphabets (esp. the Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic); also as v[erb], to supply with points in place of vowels


 * The verb point is defined as,


 * To insert the vowel (and other) points in the writing of Hebrew and other Semitic languages; also, in shorthand.


 * Good point about cantillation. I completely forgot. There are similar systems in Devanagari for Hindu scripture. kwami (talk) 23:04, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks - Dan Pelleg (talk) 23:52, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Would gershayim, used to denote abbriviations and numerals, also qualify as a diacritic? Dan Pelleg (talk) 02:28, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It should. It's an ancillary mark, and probably not required in those situations. kwami (talk) 06:14, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok; actually it is always required, except for rare cases in which an abbreviation achieves "real word" status and is no longer perceived, and therefore spelled, as an abbreviation (e.g. דו״ח, which stood for דין וחשבון (=account), became דוח (=report). One difference though between geresh and gershayim is, that geresh is clearly always assigned to one specific letter, whereas gershayim is always inserted between two letters, which makes it feel less like a diacritic in the normal sense – or is that not a vital detail? Dan Pelleg (talk) 15:29, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure the word 'diacritic' is defined that precisely. Greek and Latin used an overline for abbreviations, and they would sometimes span two letters. I think the point is that they're marks ancillary to the basic script. kwami (talk) 15:32, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I can live with that ;-) thanks, Dan Pelleg (talk) 00:57, 21 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Come to think of it, Dan, the OED has a citation where the h of ch, sh, th is described as effectively being an "in-line diacritic". The author there was, I think, discussing function rather than form, but it shows that the term is rather general. kwami (talk) 01:29, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Unambiguousness of words is an illusion… would it be safe to assume that some linguists apply "diacritic" relying on its graphic feature, i.e. "ancillary glyph", and others relying on a certain function, e.g. "pronunciation modifier" etc., effectively ending up with two similar but somewhat different meanings of the same word "diacritic"? Dan Pelleg (talk) 01:37, 21 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the basic meaning is graphic. That's based in the etymology, and I haven't seen anything else like the OED example. An ś is a kind of s, disambiguated, but we don't think of an sh as a kind of s. Of course, in the Latin alphabet your two approaches are more or less synonymous. kwami (talk) 02:40, 21 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes. Perceiving "diacritic" as "modifier", calling that "h" an in-line diacritic makes perfect sense, and compare to the "e" in German alternative representations of "ä", "ö" & "ü" as "ae", "oe" & "ue". But perceiving its basic meaning as "ancillary glyph", regardless of function, it makes no sense to call those h's and e's "diacritics" – although, as you said, thinking "latinocentrically", the distinction seems trivial. Just shows that people are creative in the ways they use words. Dan Pelleg (talk) 10:33, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Witch hunts
Dontcha love 'em? Cheers, -- Evertype·✆

Maltese peeps
Hey there. Thanks for your attempts on the Maltese people article. Maybe reading the resources first would make editing more accurate? Also, "Muslim rulers" works nicely, though your first edit to "Muslim elites" was rather odd! How exactly does one define a Muslim elite and based on what information did you come up with such a phrase? Anyway, the more editors working on Maltese articles, the better. ja fiswa imċappas bil-hara! (talk) 12:10, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi, I see you recently edited the Maltese people article. I removed some irrelevent information in the "Historical accounts" part of the section about the genetic affinity of the population - that the Maltese joined Nato- and I was then reverted by this user, where he called me a vandal. If you could weigh in on the article with your thoughts, that would be much appreciated. 78.145.16.3 (talk) 10:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Anon, please read discussion page. You seem to be targeting the same section as previous IP editor, over an issue which got the page protected. Discuss your proposed additions (over language too, if you intend to manipulate that again). we are a marvelous Machine (talk) 10:40, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Kwami, see this re Anon: - we are a marvelous Machine (talk) 11:25, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Maltese people has been semi-protected as a result of IPs vandalism. we are a marvelous Machine (talk) 16:08, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * No lying please - the article was protected due to both of us. Also, from what other editors seem to think on the talk page, it was not I who was doing the vandalism. Like I said Pietru, I'll be watching your edits. 89.243.67.167 (talk) 12:27, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * IP, you are a user who has been banned from Wikipedia. Regarding the article, the talk page makes clear our differences in approach, and, for the record, your suggestions have not only been disregarded, but found wholly unsuited to the article! If you plan to stalk my edits, you shall find yourself even more reviled than you appear to be here. Pull your finger out, do something decent and stop acting like a weirdo. we are a marvelous Machine (talk) 12:58, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * FYI, the anon has been uncovered to be User:Iamandrewrice. we are a marvelous Machine (talk) 13:04, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Dear dear, how many times must I repeat this. No, one user thinks I am "Iamandrewrice" - there has been no checkuser, and no other support from the community for this idea. Oh, you want to talk about the talk page? Have you looked there recently? The community showed clear support of my edit. Tut tut. 89.243.67.167 (talk) 18:08, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Re:Administrators' noticeboard. we are a marvelous Machine (talk) 18:16, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Was that supposed to contradict what I just said? 89.243.67.167 (talk) 18:19, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

)
 * Here's some additional information regarding the IP's connection to User:Iamandrewrice and it's trolling MO: it is from the same range as a third of known accounts used by this editor, and traces back to the exact same place as all of them. The editor's bizarre behaviour is identical, as are the articles edited. User:Knepflerle offered this salient suggestion on a possible course of action: (Only a handful of fairly narrow bands of IPs are being used) - someone ought to look into which of them can be rangeblocked without collateral damage. Pietru (talk) 21:37, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Indonesian language categories
Hello, on Indonesian language entries like Javanese language and Balinese language, you've been removing Category:Malayo-Polynesian languages and Category:Languages of Indonesia. What's the rationale behind these removals? Offenbach (talk) 14:41, 21 March 2009 (UTC)


 * They're redundant. The Javanese and Balinese language categories are already subcats of MP langs & langs of Indonesia. Also, the larger cats were so full that they were becoming difficult to navigate. kwami (talk) 16:01, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Nice model
Hey, slow down a minute. Trying to move & rearrange the material, not just relink all of it :)

Plus I got to LHB, and noticed great gaping issues in the Possible Causes section. Maybe structure it with a short summary here in Nice model and expand and condense it there (I'll get to that...). Iridia (talk) 07:48, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

[ ] vs. / /
Hi again, you changed here (IPA transcriptions of Israeli and Yiddish pronunciations) the slashes to square brackets, which, as far as I know, denote precise phonetic transcription as opposed to phonemic transcription denoted by slashes. However, these transcriptions are in fact phonemic, specifically the vowels /a/, /e/ and /o/ don't exist in modern Hebrew, which employs only the mid-vowels  and  and the open central unrounded vowel. If you insist on the square brackets, I think these vowels should be accurately represented, but why not use the phonemic representation? Dan Pelleg (talk) 11:59, 22 March 2009 (UTC)


 * If we're going to give phonemic transcriptions, then we need to define what the symbols mean, such as by linking to Hebrew and Yiddish phonology sections that uses the same conventions. Otherwise the symbols are undefined. (Such as /ħ/ and /χ/, which are not Hebrew phonemes according to the linked article.) Without a language-specific key, we should stick to phonetic descriptions. (We do link, indirectly, to Mod Heb, but not to Yiddish.) Anyway, [ä] is [a] and [e̞] is [e],—that's just a matter of how narrow a transcription we want,—so there's no problem here. For something basic like this, there's no need for great precision. kwami (talk) 18:35, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, but "phonetic precision" is exactly what the square brackets as opposed to the slashes mean. The better solution is to provide direct links to Hebrew phonology and Yiddish phonology and state the phonemics. I know the sounds [o] and [e] very well from German (and French); they absolutely do not belong to Hebrew phonology. To many ears the distinction might seem trivial, but to speakers of languages that make the [o] / [ɔ] and [e] / [ɛ] distinctions, stating that there are [o]'s and [e]'s in Hebrew is just as wrong as transcribing English "that is wrong" . Dan Pelleg (talk) 08:47, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Apart from the "nŋ", which makes no sense, your English transcription is okay, if not very precise. Brackets do not indicate any particular level of precision. You can have broad transcriptions or narrow transcriptions, all phonetic. Often broad transcriptions approximate a phonemic transcription, but by no means always. The only difference in Hebrew is in leaving off the diacritics, and it is very common to do this in broad transcriptions. If you wish to make the transcriptions phonemic and link to keys that will explain them, that would be fine. But without that, as is the case now, we should stick to phonetic notation. kwami (talk) 08:55, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Cool with me. the "nŋ" was a typo [[image:Face-blush.svg|25px]] Cheers Dan Pelleg (talk) 22:14, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Medieval Satanism
Interesting comment on the God as the Devil talk page. I don't have any idea where to look for what you've mentioned, so it would be great if you think of where to find it.

What is particularly interesting about your comment is that the references you allude to would be making the point that worshipers of the Biblical God are worshiping the Devil. So it would be very interesting to find those references.


 * -- WagePeace (talk) 00:35, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Talk:God_as_the_Devil#Quotations
Re. God_as_the_Devil,

There is an ongoing discussion in Talk:God_as_the_Devil about whether or not a number of quotations should or shouldn't be included in the article. I have no expertise in the area, and feel it would be very elpful to get some input from other users. I saw your input to the talk page, and wondered if you would be able to give your opinion on the matter - in that section of the talk page, please.`

Many thanks, --  Chzz  ►  01:11, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the protect on Niger River
You've done a wonderful service, and made my life much easier! Thanks T L Miles (talk) 01:15, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I think a few articles such as this one that are just begging to be vandalized should be indefinitely protected regardless of what the guidelines say. (Rings of Uranus is another.) kwami (talk) 01:18, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Re:lang stubs
Hi kwamikagami - I've moved your stub query to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals (and replied to it). Grutness...wha?  09:30, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Vandal
kwami, I know you're busy but I think it'd be greatly appreciated if an admin finally took some decisive action against User talk:62.42.233.35, he's been consistently vandalising for months and has had more warning than a donkey has fleas but no one seems to want to do anything. For some reason the Ignatius of Loyola page seems to attract vandals... Akerbeltz (talk) 10:56, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It's not a 'he', it's a school. Blocked for the term. kwami (talk) 11:30, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah I missed that bit but many thanks... I think you've made a lot of people happy today ;) Akerbeltz (talk) 18:06, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Borneo-Philippines
I notice that you've started including Borneo-Philippines in the Malayo-Polynesian boxes. This is not a widely-accepted grouping and the evidence for it is slim to none. Even the article on the group here in Wikipedia admits that it may very well be a geographical grouping rather than a genetic one. Adelaar and Himmelmann don't even mention it as far as I can tell. Until there is some consensus among specialists, Wikipedia shouldn't be endorsing a classification so obscure and not widely used. If the origin of it is Ross (1995) [which was actually written several years before publication], then the lack of usage over the last 15 years seems to point to a lack of acceptance. Unless you've got stronger evidence or a list of references that I'm not aware of supporting it, we should back off any endorsement or use of the "node". (Taivo (talk) 12:55, 24 March 2009 (UTC))


 * Actually, I just added the comment about it likely being a geographic grouping. But it does help organize the all those MP groups, rather as we color non-AN languages "Papuan". You may be right about leaving it out entirely, though. kwami (talk) 14:04, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The coloring of the boxes is one thing and is helpful as a geographical/genetic reference--we sure can't have 300 different colors in the template boxes (I'm not sure how the editor who did the Andamanese box got a new color). However, the text within the box needs to be a fairly straightforward genetic thing.  I don't have a big problem with multiple nodes for Malayo-Polynesian.  While it is an "apparent" violation of the Nichols admonition that most families break into two or three parts, the particular geographical situation of Austronesian on multiple islands would seem to be a natural place for a violation.  Indeed, breaking Western Malayo-Polynesian, Central Malayo-Polynesian, and perhaps even Eastern Malayo-Polynesian into many parts seems to be the trend in Austronesian linguistics lately anyway.  (Taivo (talk) 14:36, 24 March 2009 (UTC))


 * I'm removing inner & outer western MP, also CS and central MP. Looks like eastern MP should go as well ... kwami (talk) 14:38, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

alveolar lateral or L in primary position - Korean and Nahuatl
I noticed that both Nahuatl and Korean speakers generally do not start words with the letter L. Korean and Nahuatl speakers tend to drop the letter L from the beginning of loan words that begin with L.  A Spanish r becomes L.  Lorenzo, for example, becomes Olenso in Nahuatl. In Korean, Lee and Rhee become ee. Other similarities are that the F changes to P. Spanish V and B become P. (For Nahuatl references see, Andres de Olmos, Art of the Mexican Language)(Korean is my own observations). In Nahuatl, th seems to change to a single sound tl (My own observation).

In addition, there are some words that seem to be alike. For example: Rabbit or Hare is Toki in Korean and Tochin in Nahuatl. I have been informed that both cultures consider the rabbit to be the picture in the moon and related to drunkeness (See Sahagun for Aztec culture. My own observation for Korean).

Are there any studies that have compared Korean with Nahuatl or a common ancestor? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomlevinelaw (talk • contribs) 18:48, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I doubt it. Any common ancestor would probably also include English. The similarities you mention are rather common: a fair number of languages do not allow initial r, and many many languages have p for f. You can always find a few similar words between any two languages: two - tul, many - manhi, etc. That's most likely just coincidence. kwami (talk) 19:13, 24 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I was once looking at a word list of Ghanonnga (Solomon Islands). It consisted of 40 words.  I eliminated all the sea terms and then compared the remaining 33 words with Timbisha, the Uto-Aztecan language of Death Valley.  12 of the Ghanonnga words looked quite like Timbisha words with either the same or a similar meaning.  For example, tanoni 'man' (G) versus taŋummɨ (T).  12 out of 33!  That's how pervasive coincidence can be between two totally unrelated languages.  The simpler the phonemic inventories, the more likely one is to find coincidental matches.  (Taivo (talk) 19:26, 24 March 2009 (UTC))


 * We should really write a stub on the Bongo-bongo effect... I just don't have any ref handy :b Akerbeltz (talk) 19:47, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Poly v Mono theism; re voudou/n v Xtianity v catholism
to respond to your question posted last november (never new I could get messages on wikipedia...sorry, so never knew to check...but anyway) You asked why I said Voudou(n) is polytheistic.

Christianity has 1 God, and a 'son'. Not a pantheon. Catholicism is quite distinct from Protestant Christianity. Catholicism has many saints (with Voudoun deities sharing names in some areas). I don't know that Catholicism regards them as deities, but I'm not a Catholic expert (not really an expert in anything, just a little bit in several areas). My exposure to Voudoun is minimal through pagan world/readings/studies and as associated with Santeria.

It seems the primal forces of nature are more likely associated with specific 'entities' in Voudoun.

Though, in some regard, even Greek/Roman mythology started with 'one or few' deities, and expanded to multiple deities to focus on specific purposes.

I and the sources I've read/known may be wrong, but I've never, in any source, heard or seen Voudoun referred as monothestic.

Monotheism is usually associated with there being (1). Deity at the top who's word is law. There are no side-views or flavors.

Saints, as I understand in Catholicism, were supposed to be mostly 'people' who became saints (usually after death).

I don't see monotheism as allowing much room for 'Gods' of power roughly equal to the head God. In fact, God in the JudeoChristian mythos is said to be a "jealous" god -- and to have no other gods before him.

Doesn't sounds like that monotheism likes 'sharing' the stage.

I didn't think Voudoun had a "top honcho" God that was jealous and demanded devotion to him and him alone (or his 'son' under New-Testament)....

However, I claim to be an expert in nothing. :-)

*peace* and certainly no offense meant in anyway for anything I misunderstand or mistate!

Athena (talk) 02:20, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * As for Catholicism vs Christianity, Catholicism is Christianity, so there is no 'versus'. And there is an ultimate god in Vodun. It isn't a jealous god, but monotheism isn't dependent on a god being jealous. The subsidiary gods in Vodun are rather similar to angels in Xanity. They are not creator deities. Like angels, they are also more accessible, which is why people deal with them. One difference is that Vodun is pantheistic, which means every blade of grass is divine. But that isn't at odds with monotheism either. Islam, at least in its strict form, is a truly monotheistic, but if we stretch the term 'monotheism' to cover Xanity, I fail to see why it doesn't then also include Vodun. kwami (talk) 07:07, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Central Solomons img


Hi Kwami, I've left a note about a mistake in the map of Central Solomons languages at File talk:Central_Solomons_languages.png. Ngio (talk) 19:41, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Fixed. kwami (talk) 21:17, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Numbami reclassification
Kwami, Could you cite the particular 2008 source for reclassifying Numbami as (more) Ngero-Vitiaz than Huon Gulf in language-family affiliation? I can't find it on the general AN vocab database site. I'm not opposed to the reclassification, but I'm particularly interested since I'm the principal source of the Numbami data. Joel (talk) 21:03, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I didn't say it was more NV than HG, only that it was the only branch of HG that was covered by the analysis—or at least what I've seen of it, on the FullTree pdf. Since traditional families are sometimes broken up by the 2008 analysis, I didn't want to simply move HG into NV. However, if you have good reason to think HG including Numbani remains a valid clade—or if there's something I'm missing of the results, I'd be happy to reassign the entire family. kwami (talk) 21:22, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd be more inclined to acknowledge that Numbami may be even more of an isolate within HG than Ross (1988) thought, and very possibly an outlier from outside HG, perhaps even N-V (which seems to me much more of a leftover catch-all subgroup than HG), than to take Numbami as representative of HG as a whole. It's not. That's why it's an isolate even when lumped into HG. It just looks way more conservative phonologically than the rest of HG, but it has been shorn of most of its inherited morphology. (SHG Iwal, by contrast, looks to be the most conservative of ancestral morphology.) In any case, I tend to be very skeptical of Ross's higher-level lumpings, most esp. around the major Vitiaz crossroads. Joel (talk) 22:23, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Good thing I didn't move all of HG on the evidence of Numbami, then! The results only ranked NV at an 85% confidence level, which considering that it appears to be semi lexicostatistics, might be partially explicable as an areal thing. Anyway, I've redone the articles to follow the database project on the languages that were included, so Ross is getting less and less coverage the further I get through it. kwami (talk) 01:35, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Citation for reptilumi
The word reptilumi in the article Esperanto vocabulary looked as if it might be original research, considering that it was so infrequently used. Can you find a source? — Jch  thys  21:58, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Not a RS, but it's at eo wiki. I've heard of it once, with s.o. saying basically what that article says. I don't think I've ever met anyone who was completely comfortable with (m)any of these words besides krokodili, and those who knew a few usually couldn't remember which was which, so maybe it's an exaggeration to say these words are Eo slang. (Even for the few who might be comfortable with them, there's hardly anyone they could use them with.) More like an oft-repeated proposal for slang, as an extension of krokodili. But that's OR on my part. kwami (talk) 01:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's probably an often-proposed word that you hear about more than hear. Does that belong in a Wikipedia summary of Esperanto vocabulary? If so, maybe it should be stated that the word is often proposed. —  Jch  thys  12:23, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm starting to think that none of them belong in the English article except krokodili, and maybe a note that the concept is extended to other crocodilians, but not generally actually used. kwami (talk) 20:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Nicola (chief)
Please have a look at changes to my explanation; what I meant in the first draft was that it only echoes the French pronunciation, but forgot to add that the accent is on the first syllable - NICK-ola (commonly with a swchwa or some neutral vowel or other where that "o" is). I think I've got the rewording right and it needs IPA for the usually-used form., could use please oblige?...I'd meant that it wasn't in "English" form - Ni-COAL-a, which is often used by newcomers to BC until they get that straightened out (like KWEZ-nel for Quesnel, which also echoes the French pronuciation but is still different (Kweh-NEL).....maybe "adapted from the French pronunciation" would be better than "echoes the French pronunciation"?Skookum1 (talk) 22:40, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, will do. Take a look. I'm assuming the last vowel is also a schwa. kwami (talk) 01:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Need a little help
I need a little help with the article Classification of Japanese, which after a long period of stability has been subjected to radical edits that are, in my opinion, gratuitous and intentionally destructive. Please examine the matter and, if relevant, pass it on to proper authorities. Regards, VikSol (talk) 23:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Perhaps I didn't look at the edits carefully enough to see how they were intentionally destructive. Anyway, I chided both of you for name calling (which makes me something of a hypocrite), and restored the article to the stable version. Hopefully we can go over this on Talk. kwami (talk) 01:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Kwami, I much appreciate your intervening and am willing to take a little flak in the process. My only real concern is to protect the article. VikSol (talk) 01:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Northern Philippine languages
Thank you for creating Northern Philippine languages! Happy editing, Kingturtle (talk) 20:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Ukaan language
I have nominated Ukaan language, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Articles for deletion/Ukaan language. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message.  Chzz  ►  09:09, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Academia de Interlingua
Thought you might be interested in this. Apparently this academy has been "restored", which is fine in and of itself, but some people have decided that this means that they're allowed to replace the existing page with a kind of statement of intent of the new academy. Mithridates (talk) 01:28, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * * sigh* I've put it on my watch list. kwami (talk) 01:57, 5 April 2009 (UTC)