User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 9

to do list
original version


 * Canis Major
 * Capricornus
 * Cassiopeia
 * Centaurus
 * Cepheus
 * Cetus
 * Corvus
 * Cygnus


 * Draco
 * Eridanus
 * Gemini
 * Hercules
 * Hydra
 * Leo
 * Libra


 * Ophiuchus
 * Orion
 * Pegasus
 * Perseus
 * Sagittarius
 * Scorpius
 * Taurus
 * Ursa Major

obscure etymologies: Nusakan, Mesarthim, Phact, Alifa al Farkadain, Subra, Zeta Puppis (suhail ħađ̧ar or xađ̧ar), Kakkab, Alya (yet to look up), Spica (alt names), Skat/Pi Aquarii, Albulaan (spelling), Theta Columbae (etym.), Phact (yet to look up),

IPA vs. dictionary-style pronunciation guides
Regarding the recent discussion at Talk:International Phonetic Alphabet... if there really is a desire to offer multiple pronunciation guides, what about not listing them inline but putting them in a box off to the right, like the romanization boxes used for some East Asian articles (for example, I think a lot of articles on Korean things have boxes with multiple romanizations). That might be less cluttersome than trying to put them inline, and easier to code (I don't yet know of any way to toggle pronunciation guides inline without using javascript, but in a right-floating box they could just be in a list, and could be hidden in ). r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 22:01, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * That's a good idea to bring up at WP:Manual of Style (pronunciation). People might not be crazy about more info boxes though, esp. w the idea that WP:Wikipedia is not a dictionary, whereas a footnote would fit in unobtrusively in nearly any article. kwami (talk) 22:49, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * We had similar discussions over IPA for Scots Gaelic place-names. The solution that eventually turned out to be acceptable to all was to have the IPA as the translation guide but to add sound files wherever possible - should work for English too and is less clumsy that have a dozen different transcriptions. Akerbeltz (talk) 09:06, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

A
In reply to your comment, I cannot provide an honest answer to you because I simply do not know. I do not even remember editing such an article but anyhow, the matter is redundant now seeing as you have already taken your time to edit the article.

I will change my password in case such a problem has persisted without my knowledge (I haven't logged in for a while). Thanks for bringing it up.  ♦ BOHEMIAN ARCADE ♦    •  Message me • My contributions  17:56, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Romanization
Hey - join us at Talk:Hiragana if you have a minute to spare. It's about Romanization in the table. Regards Moooitic (talk) 23:31, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Rollback
Please do not use rollback in a content dispute to revert another user's good-faith edits. As you most likely know, rollback is only to revert obvious bad-faith changes. Thank you. – Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 20:31, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Cantonese
You've copped a lot of insults, but I hope we're approaching an end to the wrangling with the anonymous user regarding Cantonese/Yue, etc.

In a narrow sense I think he has a point, i.e., there is such a thing as "Standard Cantonese" that is recognised by everyone, and Taishanese isn't recognised as "dialect" of Standard Cantonese by native speakers. That is, while Taishanese is seen by linguists as a variety of "Cantonese" (Yue) in the broader sense, is not regarded as a dialect of (Standard) "Cantonese" by people who speak those languages. I think that's an important insight.

Anyway, I hope we get to a satisfactory conclusion. I think that this editor has really highlighted how unsatisfactory it is to use "Cantonese" for "Yue Chinese" as a whole.

Bathrobe (talk) 03:01, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Hopefully we can get it moved, then. But when did anyone ever argue Taishanese was a dialect of Standard Cantonese? kwami (talk) 03:38, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

IPA
There's no need to avoid using phonemic transcriptions simply because they have not been immediately defined. If a user wanted to know what /a/ means in a certain language, they would research the language's phonology. It's alright to be flexible in terms of how things are defined; this is emphasized in the Handbook of the Internation Phonetic Association. There are a few things that are not as flexible, though. You can't use brackets if it is not meant to be a phonetic description. And as for English, /ɹ/ is almost certainly the most accurate way to describe the phoneme as [ɹ] is the most common pronunciation of the phoneme. DJ1AM (talk) 03:26, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I never said we should avoid them, but we do need to define what we're doing, or the results are ambiguous. kwami (talk) 03:36, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The results are not ambiguous for those that do not care about the exact pronunciation and for those that bother to research the phonology a little bit. And I use /a/ instead of /æ/ just as some people use /r/ instead of /ɹ/.  I don't really care about the transcription standards that some guys in a Wikipedia group came up with.  Unless there is a rule in the IPA handbook for a certain situation, I use my own judgement to decide what would be right.  DJ1AM (talk) 15:44, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * "The results are not ambiguous for those that do not care about the exact pronunciation" ... then why add the pronunciation at all? Since "/a/" is commonly used for both /æ/ and /ɑː/, and you don't define which you intend, what good is it? Should we distinguish them only in positions where they contrast, and use /a/ elsewhere, and expect the reader to figure it out? Why be obscure when we can be clear? kwami (talk) 18:34, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

IPA requests
This is kind of related to my earlier suggestion made elsewhere regarding the use of IPA at Infobox Korean name (if you recall). I was wondering if there is some kind of template/category scheme for requesting that IPA be added to an article, e.g. in the same kind of way that Needhangul adds a page to ? PC78 (talk) 23:25, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, need-IPA. It's an inline template, so you can stick it right where the IPA is needed. It doesn't seem to add a category, but you can work off 'what links here', which is what I think the people patroling it do. kwami (talk) 00:03, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Actually it appears to be feeding . I'm not sure if that's wise or intentional, because that category is also fed by Cleanup-IPA which appears to be used for the opposite purpose. PC78 (talk) 00:33, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Both are used when IPA is desired. One is inline and the other for the whole section. kwami (talk) 00:41, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see. I was misreading the text in the section template. PC78 (talk) 00:45, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

York
Hello. I see that you've reverted the change made by User:Jillzilla at 18:31 on 19 August 2009. Her/his edit summary said "Changed pronounciation of "york" to match what the speaker who made the recording said (as I found the page, the recording is of a UK speaker and the IPA is for a North American)."

Very few UK speakers (and even fewer who live in the York area, as I do) pronounce the r, whereas most North Americans would do so. Doesn't it make sense to have a British English pronunciation and matching IPA for an English city rather than a mixture of the two, or, indeed an all-US pronunciation/IPA rendition? (Apologies if I've got the wrong end of the stick here - I'm no expert on IPA). Best. --GuillaumeTell 16:04, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * That's iffy. We generally transcribe the /r/, because its silence before another consonant is automatic, and then add 'locally X' if need be. Maybe we could do that with the sound file? (Usually there's no need, because no-one gets confused by it.) We do the same thing with /tju:n/ for tune, even if locally it's [tu:n]. I notice that when we respell words, people with non-rhotic accents have no problem with keeping the ars, but they sometimes object when it's in the IPA. It's not like we're saying that it's actually pronounced [jork]. (Technically it doesn't have an /r/ phoneme either, unlike say Windsor, which is truly /winz@r/.) kwami (talk) 20:18, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Kwami, I still don't  see what  the problem  would be in trying  to  achieve some standardisation  and accuracy in a reporting system for the major, and at  times very  different, regional/cultural pronunciations of English.  If  the Wikipedia is to  be respected and relied upon  as a source, the it  should aim for the same high standards as the better dictionaries. So who  is 'we'? The Americans?--Kudpung (talk) 08:34, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * No, "we" is Wikipedia, Brits and Yanks. (Why do you think we use RP vowels? Americans didn't come up with that.) I don't know why you think that English must be American if it's not RP; everything in there is found in Britain. Standardisation and accuracy: exactly. That's what we've done. You still seem to be confusing phonetics with diaphonemics; the fact that you objected to "Worcester", which is transcribed in pure RP and wouldn't be any different if we catered only to Britain, suggests you've confused phonetics with phonemics as well. If you really think the IPA must be phonetic (you've never answered that), and that "Worcester" doesn't have an /r/ in it (you've never answered that either), then I think you need to review the entire concept of the IPA, no matter how much experience you've had. kwami (talk) 09:46, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Kwami, if you read all  the contributions I've made to the various talk pages on  the subject over the last  week, you'll  see that I don't  think  those things at  all, and that  I  neither  confuse phonetics with  phonemics nor AE (even  from  Boston) with  BE. I think more likely  that  you  are confusing  me with  someone else. Although the IPA is one of the most  valuable tools I  use, it  is not my  centre of specialisation (which is more psycholinguistics and language pedagogics,). I'm a Brit (from  just  5 miles outside Worcester), I live in  southeast  Asia, I  have no linguistic pejudices and enjoy excellent  relation with  my  colleagues, most  of whom are 'Yanks'.  I  will  reiterate for the umpteenth  time s, that  my  complaint, which I  sahre with  several  other Wikipedia editors,  is about  the way 'we' (the collective geist of the IPA project) keeps changing  and reverting  the the IPA spelling  in  the names of English places for something that  does not  exist. While 'we'  allow the correct  IPA spelling of Arkansas and Connecticut, the Brits, for some obscure reason,  are not  accorded the same privilege. " The weird thing is that in RP it really is /ˈwʊstər/, with a real /r/. You hear that if you put 'is' after it. Well, in real RP, anyway. Maybe not in local Worcester dialect. So we might could say 'locally /wʊstə/', but not 'rp: /wʊstə/'" Exquisitely wrong of course, and an odd assertion  from  someone who has never even been to the UK ;) --Kudpung (talk) 09:42, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, you write at length. Maybe I'm just stupid, but I've never recognized an answer to anything I've asked. You simply deny that my questions are relevant, then reiterate your claim, without, as far as I can see, substantiating anything. Repeating a non-answer, even a paragraph at a time, does not make it an answer. You have never actually spelled out what the problem is, merely made veiled accusations of cultural imperialism. Would you mind actually addressing the question? And spelling it out for the feeble minded? What exactly is wrong with the phonemic analysis I made? Something more than "it's wrong because I live there and I know" please: an actual answer that will allow me to understand why it is wrong. kwami (talk) 09:52, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Kwami, at the risk of repeating myself yet again, I was not  the initiator of this argument -  i  got  drawn into  it  because my  opinion was asked on  something that  I'm  not  really  interested in getting  involved in. If you  were stupid, you  wouldn't  be a sysop and you would not  have been the driving  force behind the Wiki IPA GA and got  away  with it for so  long  ;) The statement in  italics is not  true? The opposite is true. You are wrong  because you  cannot  substantiate the claim, and I  am  right  because, yes, I  live there, and  I'm English - but  that  is axiomatic and doesn't  help the Wikipedia. Does that  answer your question?  Cultural imperialism? Are you  suggesting  that  the Brits have been trolling the pages on  US settlements and altering  the IPA to  suit themselves? I suggest  that I draft  a motion for  a debate on a dedicated sub  page to  let the community  decide. It  can be answered with  'support' ", 'object', etc, in  the normal  form  of a Wiki  debate, with comments (provided they  stay on  topic), We  can  find a truly neutral  sysop who  knows nothing  about linguistics to moderate it  and close it. --Kudpung (talk) 12:26, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * For a start, how about you carry on this conversation in one place rather than three. Then you can try to come up with a better argument than you're correct because you know you're correct, and I'm wrong because you know I'm wrong. You're the one who intimated cultural imperialism and that I was acting in bad faith, so don't throw it back on me. As for your motion, what, the nature of the English language is determined by a vote? I guess we could vote that the Earth is square. Why not spell out the reasoning behind your point, rather than giving reasons not to, and actually respond to a question for once? kwami (talk) 12:41, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

IPA template help needed
Hey Kwamikagami, I noticed that you were the one that semi-protected Template:IPA-nl so that's why I'm asking you for help. For usage in the Maastricht article I'm in need of a specific IPA template for "Southern Dutch" (=soft ‹g›/‹ch› pronunciation, as it is normally called) pronunciation (see --> Hard and soft G in Dutch). Whilst Flemish also uses this soft G and the pronunciation of Limburg may resemble it in some form, it does not really fall under that IPA template either. I've also included the "Northern Dutch" (i.e. hard ‹g›/‹ch›) pronunciation in the Maastricht article (especially since the .ogg file speaker uses this). I, however, don't know how to create IPA templates. Could you by any chance help me out? Thanks in advance for your time and help! Kind regards, LightPhoenix (talk) 12:07, 11 September 2009 (UTC)


 * We tend not to make templates unless there's a widespread need. We don't yet have one for Persian, for example. One thing to do here would be to add those sounds to the Dutch IPA key. However, generally what we do is use the standard transcription, and then provide a 'local' pronunciation using the generic IPA-all template. We even do this in English. kwami (talk) 12:12, 11 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see: I'd forgotten we don't yet have an IPA for Dutch key. I doubt I'll have time over the next week or two to do this, so you might want to ask s.o. else. What I'd expect would be Standard Dutch, maintaining a distinction between /x/ and /ɣ/, with any extra phonemes from Afrikaans and Flemish. Take a look at WP:IPA for Czech and Slovak, for example. kwami (talk) 12:18, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

re: in-laws
Hi, in response to your earlier question about co-parents-in-law in Korean (sadon), the male and female terms are actually different.

Dictionaries list 査頓 for the Hanja, but one dictionary says that sadon is actually a native-Korean word. --Kjoonlee 08:43, 12 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Kjoon! kwami (talk) 08:58, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Double comment at AfD:Hakka Malaysians
Hello. Thank you for your comments at Articles for deletion/Hakka Malaysians. It appears that you accidentally posted the comment twice. You may want to undo the second comment. Cheers, Cnilep (talk) 15:54, 12 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Oops! Sorry. kwami (talk) 17:27, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Dysnomia (moon)
Hi Kwamikagami, I was wondering why you undid my edits to Dysnomia (moon). The referenced source BrownandSchaller2007 clearly says: `circular orbit with radius 37350km` (not distance), and `mass of Eris` (not mass of the system). These are exactly the changes I made, which you undid. Any particular reason? Trewal (talk) 19:50, 12 September 2009 (UTC)


 * 'Radius' and 'distance' mean exactly the same thing. Both are measured from barycentre to barycentre, but the latter term is somewhat more commonplace/accessible. The orbit cannot determine the mass of Eris, so I assume that this is a simplification for the purposes of the abstract: Dysnomia is so small that the mass of the system effectively is the mass of Eris. The readership of the technical article will know this, but we cannot make that assumption for our readers. kwami (talk) 04:43, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your feed-back. I agree that 'radius' and 'distance' can mean exactly the same thing, but the term 'distance' gives more reason for confusion. One should not confuse the surface-to-surface distance (for instance used with LEO-satellites) with the center-to-center distance (which for a circular orbit is equivalent to radius). In this case there is a significant difference between these two types of distance of approx. 1300km or 3-4%. To avoid this possible confusion, the term 'radius' better describes what is meant. As far as the mass of Eris/system is concerned, you are of course correct that the mass of Dysnomia is so small compared to the mass of Eris that it falls within the error-margin of the measurement. This indeed means that the mass of the system effectively is the mass of Eris, and so the two are interchangeable. However, as the referenced source, written by someone who clearly is well aware of the difference between mass of Eris and mass of the system, only mentions the mass of Eris, and is even titled "The Mass of Dwarf Planet Eris", it would only confuse the average non-technical reader if the wiki article 'converts' this to mass of the system. Readers who are interrested but as yet unfamiliar with the relation between orbital period, radius and mass will easily find out this relation when looking further into subjects like orbital period, where the relevant formulas for Small body orbiting a central body and Two bodies orbiting each other are discussed. Readers who are not familiar and also not further interrested in these aspects would only be confused when talking about 'mass of the system' rather than 'mass of Eris'. Trewal (talk) 13:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Haumeids
Can we please rename Category:Haumeids to Category:Haumea family members, or even get rid of it altogether since it's in the Haumea drop-down box? The latter is the terminology used in Haumea-related published papers, the former is a neologism. Iridia (talk) 08:08, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


 * No objection to renaming it from me, if that fits in with how we name other minor planet families. Do you need help, or are you just running it by me? But why would we want to get rid of the category? It's simply a way to organize the articles. kwami (talk) 04:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks. Help would be appreciated - I think because it's a category, there isn't a 'rename' option as normal. Let's go with Category:Haumea family.
 * (I had wondered if we need it because we already have the nicer-looking Template:Haumea, which does include the family members). Iridia (talk) 08:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The template organizes navigation for the reader. Categories, however, organize topics for the editor as much as the reader. Without the category, the Haumeids would be scattered throughout the TNO category, making them harder to organize. Also, the template may in the future change for reasons unrelated to how we categorize the articles, and we don't want one held hostage to the other.


 * No, you can't move categories. What you do is change the categories of the articles themselves. Those will be red links. Click on one, and add in its superior category - easiest just to clip & paste from the old category. Then delete the old category once it's empty. Pretty straightforward, but let me know if you run into any problems. (First, though, is your naming in line with the other minor planet family categories? No reason for anyone to object?) kwami (talk) 08:18, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * All done - thanks for the info and explanation. (Yes, it's in line: see for example Category:Asteroid groups and families). Iridia (talk) 12:45, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Normally I'd just rename the categories, not add new ones, so that once the conversion is complete, the old category would be empty. As it is, the old category needs to be deleted from each of the articles before it's deleted from category space. kwami (talk) 20:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Old category now deleted from each of the articles. (I started doing that and stopped because I saw the 'please do not empty the category' bit on the CfD notice that went on the old category page). Iridia (talk) 23:25, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Huh. Okay. I've never seen such a message. I may not be up to date on how we do this. kwami (talk) 01:13, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Batrachotomus
Hi Kwami,

Could you please add the pronounciation (IPA) for the Batrachotomus article (Greek: batrachos/βάτραχος (frog) and tome/τομή (cutting, slicing). Thank you! Liopleurodon93  ( talk ) 15:17, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Sure. Stress should be on the cho, since the to has a short vowel. kwami (talk) 04:47, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I saw the article.. good work! Thanks again! Liopleurodon93  ( talk ) 10:43, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Haumeids
I have nominated haumeids for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. Iridia (talk) 12:40, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

What the hell are you doing?
一年前你濫用管理員職權移動Cantonese為你所喜好的標題Yue Chinese，被絕多數否定. 今天又重來，死性不改，這次remove，還不准別人undo. 作為母語為粵語的人，跟其他粵語母語者一樣，我們絕對不能接受粵語英文名改為荒唐的“Yue Chinese”. 強烈譴責你固執、不當的行為！--Newzebras (talk) 04:02, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The terminology used in Cantonese is utterly irrelevant to an English-language article: the two common names are 'Cantonese' and 'Yue'. The place for you argument is Cantonese Wikipedia. Are you arguing that Cantonese speakers should dictate how the English language is used? 'Cantonese' is unacceptable for Yue to many (most?) English speakers, because in their minds it means Canton-ese (Canton dialect). There have been interminable arguments about over whether the name 'Cantonese' should be used for Yue or for Canton-ese. And however impassioned you may be about how you want the English language to be, there are Taishanese speakers who are just an adamant that Taishanese is not a dialect of 'Cantonese' as you want us to say. What, we need to be considerate of Canton-ese speakers, but can ignore Taishanese speakers? If you can come up with a different set of English terms that unambiguously differentiates Yue from Canton-ese, I'm all ears. kwami (talk) 04:50, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

These article edits are considered vandalization
Hello. Thanks for participating in wikipedia. Your contributions are encouraged. However, recently you reverted some of my cited edits. I have provided valid citations for each of the following edits. If you cannot provide valid citations then your edits are not valid. Removing edits containing valid citations is considered vandalism. I will be reverting your changes. Please provide some counter citations to assert your edits, or open a discussion on the respective talk pages before reverting further. In each of the cases, you did not provide any citation nor reference to back up your edits. Regardless of your personal emotions with "territories", they are clearly NOT countries and you cannot make such edits without references. Thanks. // Mark Renier (talk) 08:20, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * edits to Constituent country: England et. al. are not "clearly countries", you provided no citation. I provided cites that they are not countries
 * edits to Kingdom of Denmark: Greenland is not a country, citation provided in edit
 * edits to Greenland: Greenland is not a country, citation provided in edit
 * edits to Faroe Islands: Faroes are not a country, I have provided a citation to reputable source.


 * No, a citation for Greenland from 1979 is not valid when the status changed in 2008; even if it were recent, and they did not contradict you by calling it a "country", the CIA Factbook is hardly a reliable source. And if England is not a country, you need to take it up at England. Meanwhile, you do not get to unilaterally redefine the word "country". I see that hardly any of the examples in the article on constituent country are actually "countries" under your definition. I will continue to revert your edits until you get consensus from editors who know what they're talking about. (I do not include myself in that category.) kwami (talk) 08:32, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * OK. Thanks for the quick reply. I have provided valid citations for my edits; You have provided zero citations for yours. I asked for you to start discussions before further reversions; you ignored them and reverted again anyway. No valid citations were given for any of your edits. I have requested administrator help to resolve your vandalism. Although you should have done this earlier, please find some citations for the following resolution. Thanks. //Mark Renier (talk) 09:11, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I reverted edits of yours with spurious citations. That's hardly vandalism. It also appears that other editors agree with me that your edits are unfounded. I don't know about the Faroes - you may have a valid point there, but that's an issue to take up on the talk pages. kwami (talk) 09:30, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree that it was hardly vandalism. Please excuse my arrogance. However, can you also see it from my point of view? I submitted edits with citations in good faith. They were reverted with only your commentary and no counter citations. I believe it would have been more proper for you to make your own follow on edits, correcting any mistakes I may have made, with references to what we both now know (the country defn issue), instead of just outright reverting them. This attitude does not make my edits feel welcome at all and I am less inclined to edit today because of the outright reversion without good faith consideration. Isn't that how Wikipedia normally works? I make an edit, you make an edit. I provide a citation, you provide a citation. I am not sorry for bringing this up for editor assistance, because only there did I receive this new information that you yourself also did not know about.   // Mark Renier (talk) 17:04, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Perhaps I did bite your head off, and I'm sorry if I did. And I have no problem with you bringing it up for review. The problem from my POV is that I don't have time to hunt down references to justify reverting every incorrect edit I see on Wikipedia: I have 2600 pages on my watch list, and even though many of them are rarely edited, I'd be here all day. Generally I expect such things to go to discussion. It's not like I think I'm never wrong, but in cases like this one the edit and refs were not enough to convince me I was wrong. If an editor I respect (or can see is well respected) then joins in and tells me I don't know what I'm talking about, I'll either drop it or research it enough to be able to defend my point with refs as you suggest, depending on how confident I am and how much free time I have. kwami (talk) 09:43, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Cantonese cont'd
With so much opposition to your recent move perhaps it would be best for you to stop making all of these changes in all articles that mention "Cantonese" to suit your recent move. Clearly not all editors who have edited those pages are wrong, and now must suddenly conform to this standard that you have imposed. Kindly wait until we can reach some kind of community consensus on this issue, please. Colipon+ (Talk) 22:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * If we can identify which topic a link is intended for, we should direct it to that topic rather than a dab. You can always revert it if the page moves again. kwami (talk) 22:07, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * To be perfectly frank, your move wasn't appropriate in the first place. If you can show that you went through the proper procedures to gather a community consensus on the issue, then that is fine. But until now you have been unable to do this and you have also chosen to ignore almost all the opposing views, generally dismissing them as "wrong" and then going about your business. This encyclopedia belongs to the community, and as such everyone's views should be respected, especially when they give large amounts of supporting evidence. Colipon+ (Talk) 22:10, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * We're all well aware of your point of view. I have not been dismissing people as wrong, I've been searching for unambiguous article names. I've found one in much of the academic literature. So far you have failed to suggest anything else. There is no "evidence", just a lot of talk about why one opinion is more "correct" than another. Find another solution, another way to disambiguate the articles, and I'll be happy to consider it, as will everyone else. kwami (talk) 05:07, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Your attitude is highly offensive, and makes work on these articles very difficult. So far you have failed to suggest anything else. There is no "evidence", just a lot of talk about why one opinion is more "correct" than another.?? This is blatantly false. Please read what I actually said on the talk page. As the person who moved the page rather unilaterally you actually have the burden of proof here, not me. That's not to mention I've added much "evidence" to my edits on the talk page but now suddenly to you there is none. Colipon+ (Talk) 08:08, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I guess we have different ideas of what the word "evidence" means. kwami (talk) 07:32, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Recently, after a non-involved administrator moved the article to "Cantonese (linguistics)", you decided to move the article back to the name that you had imposed earlier. Again, as an administrator involved in this dispute, it would be proper to seek consensus before making such moves. Until now you have moved the page three times to "Yue Chinese", and you have not gone through the proper procedures to seek consensus in each of those cases. In the absence of a community consensus, and especially in light of the massive opposition that the move to "Yue Chinese" has now gathered, I respectfully ask that the page be moved back to "Cantonese" or "Cantonese (linguistics)" as soon as possible, and then discussion can continue there. I am hopeful that we can seek a solution on this issue together. Thanks! Colipon+ (Talk) 23:07, 19 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, because an anonymous IP dishonestly requested the move as "uncontroversial". The '(linguistics)' tag was removed by consensus over a year ago, as being inappropriate for non-linguistic topics, and no-one in the discussion had suggested we move back to it. kwami (talk) 22:43, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Template:LangWithName
You might be interested in the change I made to LangWithName (the core for many language templates such as zh-stp); it's described at Template talk:LangWithName. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 03:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Rjanag. That should help with articles. Looks like about 350 templates - hopefully it won't take people too long to change them over, esp. with AWB. I might get a few done myself. kwami (talk) 05:28, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

More on Chinese templates
The more I look, the more I feel the mess at Category:Chinese multilingual support templates is out of control. There seems to be a lot of redundancy with all these templates...redundancy in of itself isn't bad, but it causes problems when one template is updated (like I recently did), since there are like a hundred others that need to be updated as well, and it can't necessarily be done with AWB.

So, to that end, I just created User:Rjanag/zh, a template that I believe has the functionality of all of these templates. The only difference is that you have to use named parameters, not numbered...but I think most of these template calls used named parameters anyway (ie,, rather than ). When making it, I was careful to make sure that I didn't lose any of the functionalities contained in any of the other templates. Ideally, this template could be moved to and then all articles could just use that one, and display the relevant Chinese and romanizations based on what templates are used (for example, some would use, while others might use , the difference being that the second one gives both simplified and traditional). Currently, though, zh is a redirect to zh icon and a lot of pages seem to use it; it might be used in other ways, too, because its WhatLinksHere says it's included in some random pages (for instance, Quiznos) but I can't find it in the wikitext, suggesting that it's a transclusion within a transclusion....

Anyway, I'm thinking that if it's possible some day for me to go through and manually replace the s with s, then I can move this new template to there and slowly start replacing specific templates (like ) with this one, in all the articles where they're used. Do you have any thoughts on this? r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 06:35, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Good idea, a lot of work. You might want to put your template in mainspace under "zh-testing" or s.t., redirect a common zh-xx template to it, and wait for the complaints to flood in if you've missed s.t., then try another, etc., until you're confident you've got it right, meanwhile migrating from zh to zh icon with AWB (preparse?). Of course, it might not be possible to rd some of the zh-xx templates until the individual articles have named parameters; that could be done with AWB and regex, though I don't know if I'm up to that kind of complexity in regex--I can't get some things to work that look simple on paper. Anyway, no point in editing the individual articles (except for named parameters) until you've redirected all the templates and they're working well. I wouldn't spend my time on it even then; there are bots that can automate the task. kwami (talk) 07:43, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Impressive, having a template where Cantonese is nor forced to Jyutping would be really good! Akerbeltz (talk) 22:47, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


 * One comment: first=t puts Tongyong before Hanyu, but since Taiwan's switched to Hanyu, do we want them linked like that? Would it be possible to have a generic n=x, where n is any ordinal, and x is any parameter, and repeatable (1=t, 2=s, 3=p, etc.)? kwami (talk) 06:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah, I didn't think about that. I could just get rid of the Tongyong-before-Hanyu bit...the important thing is allowing trad. to go before simp., but I'm not so concerned about the different Pinyin styles. I also considered adding something like first=j to allow Jyutping to go before Pinyin (for Cantonese-related articles), but then again I'm not sure how widely accepted/used Jyutping is as compared to others.
 * As for an n=x setup, it should be possible, it would just require lots of messy code&mdash;as you can see with the trad./simp. characters, the only way I really know to do it so far is to repeat the code over and over again in different parts of the template. Another option would be to divide the templates into core and shell templates...ie, put all the messy code for displaying simplified characters (for example) into (after usurping that...or I could just give it a new name), do that for everything, and then make  itself be nothing more than a shell template that has a big #switch statement deciding which thing to show and when. It sounds like something I can play around with in my userspace for a while...these things always seem to work out better in my head than they do in actual code!
 * If enough functionality gets added to that, it might even be better to divide this across two templates, the current template left more or less as-is to be used in most cases (where people aren't concerned about ordering and the current version is sufficient), and something new, like  or something, which would have extended functionality but also more parameters and more complicated syntax. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 15:12, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The people behind Jyutping are just pushy (off Wiki I mean); it has flaws, especially for an English speaking audience, especially the j for [j] and c for [tʃ] thing. Is it not possible to have the ordering flexible, as in, that if you move one above the other manually, they display that way? I must confess to a high degree of ignorance regarding templates. Akerbeltz (talk) 18:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't foresee too much need for flexibility apart from traditional before simplified. Actually, I'd think we'd want that as the default, with "first=s" as an option. After all, traditional is the international form, with simplified being restricted to mainland China (and maybe Singapore?). kwami (talk) 19:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps...although at this point it will be difficult to change. I didn't notice your message before I started replacing, and now I've basically gone through and replaced many of the traditional-first templates with, and many of the simplified-first with just   (but I haven't done all of them...there are still several thousand more, so rather than trying to do them by hand I'm starting to fiddle with bot stuff). So things that already have first=t won't be changed if I update the template, but things that don't (i.e., any articles about mainland China stuff) will be changed, unless a simple way can be found to go and insert first=s into all of them. r ʨ anaɢ</b> talk/contribs 00:19, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


 * AWB can insert first=s into templates which do not contain first=t, and I assume other bots could easily do the same. It should be ignored unless and until it's defined. kwami (talk) 07:02, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It would have to be done by a bot, since there are over 6,000 articles that would need to be edited.
 * Also, about the suggetsion above for a template with more flexibility... I threw together a mock-up at (with an example in my sandbox), which gives the user full control (I think) over the order in which they display things. In most cases that much control isn't necessary (and indeed, the vast majority of combinations would be illogical...for instance, you would never put the literal translation or any of the romanizations before the Chinese characters), but after some more tweaks I could probably put it into mainspace in the off-chance that anyone wants more control (over, for example, the order in which various romanizations are displayed in a given article). <b class="Unicode">r ʨ anaɢ</b> talk/contribs 16:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, if it's easy to do and not code intensive, why not. But you might wait until there is an actual demand for a particular option - it might never materialize, or materialize in a way we didn't expect. kwami (talk) 22:37, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm going to copy this on the template talk page. kwami (talk) 22:38, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

AWB
Hi. When you edited Ycatapom Peak you make a syntax error that broke the infobox. I fixed it and it was no big thing. I noticed you used AWB. I know that it is easy to save articles in AWD without checking the results. I've learned the hard way by making the same kind of little mistake and then not catching it by viewing the results. Just a heads up. – droll  &#91;chat&#93;  19:34, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for catching that. Unfortunately, the WP servers have been so slow that preview mode has often been disabled, making it impractical to check large numbers of edits. But I see preparse has started working again recently, so maybe preview is back up as well. kwami (talk) 06:38, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:WQA
Hello,. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikiquette alerts regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:01, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Wadi el-Hol Scripts
Sorry if creating this tab is inappropriate, I am somewhat unfamiliar with editing ettiquette, as will become apparent shortly. You recently reverted every revision I made this summer, including cited links, and I would like to inquire why? I see now that certain elements of my edits (I am the later (or possibly both) 41.xxx IPs (from Egypt) on the Middle Bronze Age Alphabets article) I created an account thereafter). I realize that some elements of my postings may have been either controversial or perhaps bordering on personal research.

However, I would like to point out that what I added added the first actual citations to various sections as well as new analysis to already present substantive evidence. I am curious what qualifications you have to judge and remove cited material while leaving uncited material unscathed; could you please provide a rationale? Particularly for the inclusion of Arabic letters to the table, I was mostly citing Wiki's pages on letters... which trace the 'etymology' of letters across Semitic languages including Arabic. Why is the presence of Arabic on the chart detrimental? Additionally how has Colless's material been accepted as anything beyond the opinion of one man, with a huge polemical bias and a questionable set of credentials, working out of New Zealand? (Particularly since his blog and his postings on the internet have broadly been criticized (along with everything else) as not reflecting an academic consensus...)

I am truly at a loss, I have only recently begun contributing, generally on obscure personal interests, and I assumed that this article would profit not only from citations but also from alternative analysis to essentially speculative issues. You will note that one of the maybe 2 or 3 actually published articles on the Wadi el-Hol scripts is not present, only Colless's reconstruction is present, though the literature he has published is solely on the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions and not on Wadi el-Hol?

Assuming there is no reasonable explanation of the distinction in verifiability issues, shouldn't all of this material also be removed? Thank you in advance.Msheflin (talk) 21:20, 22 September 2009 (UTC)


 * [moved my answer to the article talk page—kwami (talk)]

Hey, as a semi-related issue. I was looking through the Table on the discussion page (with the Ugaritic) and I noticed that in Ugaritic, the dhayp (I don't have that character handy) character is called dhal in Ugaritic. I am not particularly familiar with the Greek system of writing and I'm wondering if that's where the name dhayp comes from? Like... two things, first of all, the idea that ziqq replaced dhayp I think is an uncited Colless addition. But regardless, where does that name come from, because I would have to assume the Ugaritic name would be earlier, and thus the Arabic and Ugaritic characters would be named and pronounced the same, separated only by a huge gap in time - suggesting continuity rather than replacement as stands now. The Ugaritic character is cited on the Ugaritic page I believe. So where did we come up with the other name? Michael Sheflin 01:55, 25 September 2009 (UTC)


 * It's not from Greek AFAICT. I don't know, but I assume that the letter names for Ugaritic are reconstructed, not actually attested anywhere. kwami (talk) 19:07, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Yea... That's why someone pointed out a while back on the other discussion that taking letter names from modern iterations may be misleading. However, I have never heard that name before and on the table, it is not listed as belonging to a particular language/alphabet. So if Ugarit has any attestation, it would imply that the earlier name was dhal (and that the only remaining/known extant names are also dhal). Michael Sheflin (talk) 19:17, 26 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Since the Greek names are ultimately derived from Proto-Semitic, that might be a better place to look, no? Akerbeltz (talk) 20:02, 26 September 2009 (UTC)


 * How do we know "Proto-Semitic" names? It's not tangibly a language or corpus of scriptures?  It's a theoretical predecessor of descendant scripts.  Plus the "Proto-Semitic names," as it were, are mostly redacted from later scripts with a heavy emphasis (at least on Wiki) on Hebrew to the detriment of other attestations.  Either way, it's not helpful; thank you though. Michael Sheflin (talk) 00:38, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I can't even attest that we actually know the Phoenician, or if it's been reconstructed from the Greek and Hebrew. Mostly sources just give the names, without indicating where they come from.


 * But the Greek letter names are derived from the Semitic. They mean nothing in Greek, apart from 'short e', 'double g', and the like. kwami (talk) 01:02, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Suggests a broader problem with the way Wikipedia allows the inclusion of material as fact. Michael Sheflin (talk) 01:09, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Dude... I understand that my 'citations needed' were excessive, and if you notice, they all followed a questionable assertion, like southern Egypt was "in the heart of literate Egypt." I think that deserves another citation than the preceding clause, "very similar to the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions." Two questionable (but supportable) assumptions, need two citations in my humble opinion. Why did you revert my links to the meaning of b3l? If it was another does of bulk perversion, could you please return those citation?

You are once again reverting citations... I realize you questioned Tower of Babel's credentials, but its founder, Stratosin or whatever his name is is dead, and it is partnered with the following academic institutions:

The Russian State University of the Humanities (Center of Comparative Linguistics) The Moscow Jewish University The Russian Academy of Sciences (Dept. of History and Philology) The Santa Fe Institute (New Mexico, USA) The City University of Hong Kong The Leiden University

Institutions, not individuals, to me that suggests greater reliability. (Michael Sheflin on friend's laptop) 41.196.211.23 (talk) 22:48, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not contesting the citation tags, just the manner of using them, as I just said below (probably while you were writing this). Any editor will know that when you cite an entire paragraph, you need to support all claims within that paragraph, so one tag at the end is sufficient. Plus, you were double tagging things which were already tagged.


 * Your original research, however, is not appropriate. I'm not questioning Starostin, but the relevance of the material. The fact that you cannot find a given meaning of ba'alat in a particular dictionary does not mean that it does not exist; this would be such an obvious error that it would've been noticed during the last century. If you can find a source that specifically critiques the translation of ba'alat for this reason, that's a different matter. If you're the only one saying it, then publish your conclusions and cite yourself. But no WP:original research: this article is messed up enough as it is. kwami (talk) 22:56, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

You don't understand what synthesis and original research are. Which is amazing because you've done this so long and are notably and deservedly decorated as such. I explained, in a previous post on the MBAA discussion what synthesis is. OR is research I have done. Starotsin has nothing to do with this site; it is the largest Semitic etymology database on the web. This database (in contrast to the uncited assertion that ba'lat means lady (in byblos it did, by the way ba'lat gebel meant the lady of Byblos). Ba'lat was a goddess, so her name is a proper noun too... (not OR, why not read Wikipedia?).  Additionally, the taa suffix in virtually every Semitic language is linguistically related to the feminization of the word (in hebrew it is hah (and in some dialects of arabic it is as well)).  In current arabic, it is called taa marbuta (final taa) but often pronounced as +eh and sometimes takes the form of taa.  This would be like removing a citation, as OR, from a French article claiming that personne is the feminization of person (by claiming that person is attested, and that editors qualified in grammar will realize it is inappropriate, therefore, to remove that citation.

I included the conjugation issue, because again, in most or possibly all known Semitic languages, taa often serves as a conjugation of the verb either for 3rd person singular feminine, first person, or second person. That's not OR, this is a misunderstanding, but I really don't appreciate it. This is also what I meant by hijacking, you are taking too much editorial power without fully appreciating what you are doing. About the citations, I guess I understand your point, but my point is that many of these assertions will be (based on my research (that I am not including...)) not verifiable because they are not correct. Rather than removing things, I thought it would be more appropriate to call attention to them. Please either justify your removals or revert my changes. (MS on friend's laptop) 41.196.211.23 (talk) 23:05, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Ba'alat "lady" is AFAIK the accepted interpretation of the inscription. It may be false. However, saying it's false because of your personal conclusions based on your personal investigation is what we call WP:Original research. Get yourself published in a peer-reviewed journal that it should be translated "tower", and we're good to go. Otherwise it's not appropriate, no matter how correct you know you are. kwami (talk) 23:12, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * So including other interpretations is an editorial choice I believe you made improperly. I cited nothing about my own conclusion (they're not personal investigations - it's stuff I came across from research at those above academic institutions...).  If Ba'lat is accepted (the "a" sound after the 3yn was added far after the arrival of that word btw).  So... since there is no citation to Ba'lat as lady (outside of that myth about her name in Lebanon (and the attestation of that word as those other meanings I listed (FYI)), how exactly can we verify it is cited?  You'll note I didn't contradict it, I added more of the truth.  This is again what I was saying about unqualified editor heavy-handedness.  I don't think it's worth contributing to either.  This particular articles is substantially ruining the quality of information on Wikipedia and the internet more broadly (based on your questionable and overbearing calls). For that reason I remain concerned, but this is not only vandalism, but a misunderstanding of policy.  If Needsmertblonde sees this, could you explain to me how we convene an arbitration?  Maybe my prose really is that confusing, or maybe you are in fact guiding this with your own non-verified OR.  I'd prefer someone else tell us and then I either go on my way or contribute in a non-hostile work environment. (MS) 41.196.211.23 (talk) 23:20, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Here is a non-academic statement that it means 'lady', one of many, showing that this interpretation has passed into the general lit. If you wish to "add more truth" (your phrase for "original research", which you still do not seem to understand), and are frustrated by my "vandalism" (another word which you do not appear to understand), then please take a look at Dispute resolution for how to procede. kwami (talk) 23:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * BTW, rereading that paragraph (as it exists now), why is the info (that you said was OR from me) that b3l+t**** as a feminization of b3l also not OR (because it's an identical point). And on that basis, I stupidly did not realize that the first link you removed actually is that citation - along with the two etymologically related meanings of that word according to ToB.  So; my OR was actually the citation that is needed, but because it comes from me, you assumed it was OR.  I have a problem with this... (MS) 41.196.211.23 (talk) 23:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * It may be OR. We'll have to check that when we get some citations. But that's not an excuse for you to add yet more OR. kwami (talk) 23:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

ZhBot
Hey Kwami, I've prepared a bot to finish up the -related work, and filed a request for approval at Bots/Requests for approval/ZhBot. If you have a moment I would appreciate your input (and an extra set of eyes to make sure everything looks ok!). Thanks, <b class="Unicode">r ʨ anaɢ</b> talk/contribs 17:21, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Lea, Lancashire
I've just noticed in this edit in May you asserted that is the pronunciation of "Lear" not "Leah". To my mind, both are pronounced identically (assuming a silent "r"), and my dictionary agrees (Collins Concise Dictionary, 4th ed, 1999, ISBN 0 00 472257 4). Another editor has just deleted the pronunciation altogether. What do you think the difference is? -- <font style="color:#FFFF80;background:#006000"> Dr Greg  <font style="color:#006000;background:#FFFF80"> talk 12:28, 26 September 2009 (UTC)


 * At this point I no longer remember. Do you pronounce the name as one syllable, or as two? Is the e not pronounced the same as in the noun lea? kwami (talk) 18:42, 26 September 2009 (UTC)


 * [copying to the article]

Aberra Molla
I have restored this article as you should not have deleted it. You were engaged in trying to delete the article through AfD and other methods when you speedy deleted it. If you wish to have the article deleted, you will need to take it to AfD again and go through the process there rather than just deleting the article yourself. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks! ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:38, 26 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually I wasn't, and this is a vanity bio written by the subject, but okay. kwami (talk) 23:51, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

NowCommons: File:Velotype.jpg
File:Velotype.jpg is now available on Wikimedia Commons as Commons:File:Velotype.jpg. This is a repository of free media that can be used on all Wikimedia wikis. The image will be deleted from Wikipedia, but this doesn't mean it can't be used anymore. You can embed an image uploaded to Commons like you would an image uploaded to Wikipedia, in this case:. Note that this is an automated message to inform you about the move. This bot did not copy the image itself. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 00:25, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay. We can always restore it if Commons decides to delete it. kwami (talk) 00:31, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

alphabet citations: I may revert the deletion of citation needed, see the talk page
That whole article is lacking inline citations and there is significant dispute about all points and assertions. The only way to get a start on that is look at each citation needed tag and determine if a citation exists. If so, put it in, if not remove the assertion. The number of such tags reflects the quality of the article's references. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 22:44, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Sure, but we don't need two to three 'cn' tags per sentence. That's simply disruptive. When an entire paragraph is uncited, it's usual to put a single tag at the end of the paragraph. kwami (talk) 22:47, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it's kind of only fair that if you think it is excessive to include more than 1 cite-needed thing per sentence (with more than one assertion) please break the assertions up into individual sentences and put my tags back in at a rate of 1 per sentence. Otherwise, I think what I did was really fair. One x-needed per each claim (at a rate of more-than-one claim/assertion per sentence). This is a chief reason the article is so questionable in general... (Michael Sheflin on friend's laptop) 41.196.211.23 (talk) 22:50, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * As I just said above, it's unnecessary as well as disruptive. Normal human intelligence is sufficient to see what specifically needs to be cited within the paragraph. Over tagging is like changing "I do not agree with you" to "Not I not agree not with not you". kwami (talk) 22:59, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
 * 1)You're probably right; 2) Apparently not; per my other response, that final example is not correct. It's like changing "the green sun is the best" to "the green sun (cite needed) is the best (cite needed)."  I'll concede the point, but not the motivation. (MS) 41.196.211.23 (talk) 23:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

You've now reverted everything. Again, why did you remove cited material of relevance to the article?

You see? I haven't really touched your changes, but you keep reverting ALL of mine, as if it were personal; and including cited material of relevance to academic literature that (I shouldn't have to say this) is not MY OPINION. How do you not see the asymmetry here, and how do we start some form of protection so that you aren't the only one editing this article? (MS) 41.196.211.23 (talk) 23:32, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Because it's WP:OR: how many times do I have to say it? Your refusal to understand that your opinions are not "Truth" will not change my mind. Actual refs that this has anything to do with the subject will. kwami (talk) 23:35, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Dude, you just reverted those refs... Michael Sheflin (talk) 23:42, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * No, read it again: references which show that your conclusions from dictionary trawling are a legitimate refutation of a century of scholarship. You need something better than the dictionary itself. Anyway, this has been going on for days without you seeming to get it, and I'm tired of it. Take it up with dispute resolution. Meanwhile I'll protect the admittedly bad article from becoming even worse. kwami (talk) 23:53, 27 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I beg your pardon. Typing in a root in a dictionary of Semitic etymology, partnered with multiple legitimate institutions, and citing the result is not trawling.  Citations to dictionaries are not allowed on Wikipedia for definitions?  I have tried to contact a mediator.  Additionally, if Ba'lat meaning "lady" (only) is a feminization of Ba'l (lord/master (not cited on that page either, btw)), then why is the translation not "lady (as in lord)" or "female master."  Frankly dude... I get it, you're overprotective and insecure, and you don't understand why using a masculine word (or verb) with a "t" at the end is not the same thing as creating OR... it's common sense (to quote someone smarter than myself).  But again, since I'm already aware of this - and have helped enshrine a losing battle of actual scholarship in your sea of distant simplicity, feel free to keep on only allowing yourself to edit this article which you started and thus, I guess, own.


 * Also, it's a bit contradictory for you to acknowledge (rightly so) that there have been fewer than 5 (say) publications on Wadi el-Hol, but that there has been a century of scholarship. You're correct on both points, but this is infinitely more misleading than the wording: 3 articles have been published on the subject in the last 100 years.  Your arrogance is amazing.  And since (via your editing) it would be easier to publish on the subject than edit Wikipedia, I will concentrate on that angle.  I will participate in any process to try to restore neutrality to this article, but your stubbornness in allowing anyone besides yourself to make changes really bothers me.  Michael Sheflin (talk) 01:31, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Uh, Ba'alat is suggested for proto-Sinaitic, not for Wadi el-Hol. Proto-Sinaitic was described over a century ago; Gardiner published nearly a century ago. Ergo, "a century of scholarship" is about right. And the translation *is* "lady (as in lord)". That's what "lady" means: the feminine of "lord". Check your dictionary. Ergo, the translation of ba'alat the feminine of ba'al. But whether the word may also mean "tower" is irrelevant unless you can demonstrate it's considered to be relevant in the lit. That what "OR" means. Anyway, I'm tired of talking to a wall. Take it to arbitration if you like; please don't post on this page anymore. kwami (talk) 01:40, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Kosciuszko
Should we put then /kɒskiˈʊʃkoʊ, kɒskiˈɒskoʊ/ for Brooklyn and /kɒziˈɛskoʊ/ for Mississippi? What about the secondary stress on the first syllable? Regards.--Carnby (talk) 09:40, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, those look like safe bets. I have no idea if there's stress on the first syllable - IMO best leave it off unless we can find s.o. who knows. kwami (talk) 09:58, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The problem is that "kahs-kee-OSS-ko" (for Brooklyn) contains both "ah" and "O(SS)"; following respell key the first one should be (phonemically) /ɑː/ and the second one /ɒ/.--Carnby (talk) 09:08, 29 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, but they're not following our respelling key. People generally aren't very consistent about such things, so there's no way to know whether they consider those vowels to be the same or different. kwami (talk) 09:54, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: respell
Ah, thanks, that'll make this less tedious. Typing all the <tt> <tt> tags was annoying. --<b style="color:#3773A5;">Cyber</b> cobra (talk) 02:49, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

IPA tie bars vs. unified graphs
Hey kwami,

I was about to get on AWB and start replacing, for example, tɕ with ʨ...in the process I was also going to replace t͡ɕ with the single-graph version. But then I noticed in the IPA article here that apparently the single versions are no longer standard? If that is the case, should I be replacing everything with the tie-bar versions, rather than vice versa? (I was a bit surprised, because in a recent job of mine, where I was transcribing Monguor texts and converting things from practical orthography to IPA, I was always told to represent single phones with single characters wherever possible, and thus I always used the ʨ/ʦ/ʥ/etc.) <b class="Unicode">r ʨ anaɢ</b> talk/contribs 21:15, 2 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, the ligatures are not official IPA. The probable reason is that such an approach cannot help but be inconsistent, since few affricates have ligatures available (there is none for tɬ, tθ, kx, qχ, cç, or pf, for example), so individual languages would end up with mixed systems. The idea of the tie bar is that it "ties" digraphs into single characters the way a ligature does, but is universally applicable.


 * Also, over the last couple months an editor went through WP replacing ligatures with digraphs, using a tie bar when there was a phonemic distinction between affricate and stop + fricative. The problem is that the tie bar is not widely supported, because Microsoft got it wrong, and also a lot of people think it's distracting. He got a lot of flack for that, and I don't think we have consensus on how to deal with this. kwami (talk) 22:15, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Toki Pona Trademark
Please explain why you remove this edit. It is well documented in multiple well regarded online articles, including a reference to one of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Erikev (talk • contribs) 21:38, 6 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Because, as I've explained several times, you can't copyright either a language or a script. Tolkien couldn't copyright his, and neither can Sonya. kwami (talk) 21:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

That is your opinion. It is documented that this is trademarked. Do you think is is reasonable to undo my comments on the talk page?Erikev (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:59, 6 October 2009 (UTC).


 * No, it is not an opinion, it's a statement of fact. No, it has not been documented. And no, I did not undo your comments on the talk page: You're zero for three. kwami (talk)

Wait: the talk page has centered on copyright, and that's what I was going on. If it's trademarked, that info will be available online. Let me take a look to see if I can find it. Or maybe you can? kwami (talk) 22:10, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

No, nothing registered in Canada or the US, and no claim to trademark that I can see on her website. kwami (talk) 22:36, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

IPA-pl
Hi, I think I've now eliminated (at least from article space) all instances where Template:IPA-pl was being used with the multiple pipes in the style of IPAr. So if you want to change IPA-pl to make it behave the same way as the other IPA-xxx templates (or redirect it to IPA-pol? I don't remember what the plan was) then it ought to be possible now.--Kotniski (talk) 07:38, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks! It will be nice to be consistent with the ISO coding.


 * I did a search through IPAr, and it looks like it is only being used for Polish, correct? It might be a good thing to keep it that way, for ease of maintenance, since AWB can only load 25,000 transclusions from any one template, and there are more than 25k just with Polish. (Just a suggestion, since I won't be maintaining it.) kwami (talk) 07:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, although someone did add some Japanese respellings to Template:Pho (on which IPAr is based) - I don't know if they're in use anywhere.--Kotniski (talk) 09:04, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

By the way, there may be a problem with the square brackets on IPA-pl - the old version didn't add brackets, whereas I suppose the current version will be adding them, to be consistent with the other IPA-xx templates. So there may be articles which transclude this template but include brackets, thus leading to double brackets.--Kotniski (talk) 09:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, thanks. There were only a few articles left transcluding IPA-pl, and I deleted the brackets in them. IPA-pol added the brackets automatically, so the move to IPA-pl hasn't affected those articles. kwami (talk) 09:23, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * There is also the template Audio-IPA-pl, which still uses respellings - should those also be converted to IPAr? (IPAr can handle such cases with the AUD parameter).--Kotniski (talk) 09:17, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Up to you. It's redundant, but maybe not worth the effort. Unless you can program AWB to automate it.


 * If you don't mind, I'd like to request a bot change all transclusions of {{IPAr|pl to {{IPAc-pl (or something similar), and move the template, so that it's clearly for Polish only. Mostly concerns of maintenance issues, but also I wonder what would happen to the server if IPAr were to expand to support 20 or 30 languages. kwami (talk) 09:23, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I've made {{tl|p-pl}}, with the subtemplate {{tl|p1pl}} for the coding, which I was thinking could be a starting point for the new set of (possible) templates (i.e. I was thinking of calling them {{tl|p-xx}} and {{tl|p1xx}}). Since IPAr has only been used for Polish so far (I think, though we'd have to check that the Japanese parameters haven't been used anywhere), that could be redirected to the new Polish-specific template (well not exactly redirected, because there's an extra parameter, but you know what I mean). However I notice that there's a Hungarian version of the template which is called {{tl|IPAc-hu}}, in line with your suggestion above (and which uses {{tl|Huph}} as the subtemplate). So do you have any preference as to which naming system we use? I would prefer p-xx rather than IPAc-xx, just because it's shorter and I can't work out what the "c" is supposed to stand for (the "p" is for pronunciation or phonetics), but I don't mind that much. For the subtemplate, for consistency, I would prefer something where the xx again comes at the end (so p1xx is preferable to xxph). Any thoughts?--Kotniski (talk) 16:39, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, definitely xx or -xx at the end IMO. I like s.t. with IPA in it if only to make it obvious what it does. Not everyone editing an article will recognize it. kwami (talk) 20:14, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * All right, let's say IPAc-xx (I see now, "c" stands for "convert";) ). So maybe {{tl|c-xx}} for the subtemplate in that case?--Kotniski (talk) 06:41, 19 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I only used IPAc because I have no idea what the r in IPAr stands for. If I knew, I might like it better. As for the subtemplates, I don't think that matters. Very very few people will ever dig into it that far, so I'd say do whatever makes it easiest for you.


 * (And although I think we should have "IPA" in the formal template, if typing "IPA" all the time is too onerous, you could always create a shortcut redirect.) kwami (talk) 07:26, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I think "r" stood for respelling, but "c" is just as good. In that case I'll move {{tl|Huph}} to {{tl|c-hu}} and move the new Polish templates to the corresponding positions (and I'll try and find out what's with the Japanese).--Kotniski (talk) 07:40, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Theta Serpentis
http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=\data\semham\semet&text_recno=2602&root=config

Use it, or don't. What's up there is not correct. It means the tail or rump, not the sheep. Michael Sheflin (talk) 09:36, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks! That's one I wasn't able to confirm. kwami (talk) 10:47, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Shilluk language
Kwami, you're better on African languages than I am - I think this page needs a quick check. Akerbeltz (talk) 22:51, 15 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Definitely needs cleanup, though I know next to nothing of Nilotic languages. kwami (talk) 23:38, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Your attention
Is drawn. ÷seresin 05:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. kwami (talk) 06:06, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Category:Cantonese (linguistics)
I have restored the category Category:Cantonese (linguistics) as I couldn't find a discussion about its deletion. If it needs to be deleted or renamed then it should be listed up at WP:CfD. Thanks. Tassedethe (talk) 08:06, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * It's redundant with Category:Cantonese language. kwami (talk) 20:15, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

IPAc-hu template
Do you think you could remove the small "Hungarian pronunciation: " from the start of Template:IPAc-hu? This would make it consistent with the Polish one, and with the Japanese and English ones I started in the same series. I've checked all the article space transclusions and none of them require these extra words (except for one which I've reworded accordingly).--Kotniski (talk) 09:37, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * In fact, can you just copy the entire content of IPAc-hu/Temp into IPAc-hu? (The examples will work correctly once it's in place.) This will make it correspond to the Polish and other IPAc templates, adding the audio file feature etc. and documentation.--Kotniski (talk) 09:55, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Or alternatively, unprotect the template (it has very few transclusions, so it's not exactly high-risk).--Kotniski (talk) 10:13, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Sure. Done, and bumped down the protection level. kwami (talk) 01:33, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks.--Kotniski (talk) 10:19, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

David Bowie
Hi, I think the final vowel in Bowie is not long: the pronunciation found in this page was an IPA transcription of this one. There's also an audio file here (an American speaker) where the final vowel seems to be /i/. Cheers--Carnby (talk) 02:52, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi
Hello, i'm looking for informations about this image : File:Uranian system schematic.jpg. I know it's old, but do you remember where you got this image ? (like nasa's website or something), just to add a better source to the description on Commons. Thanks ! --Lilyu (talk) 04:04, 31 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe it was from [rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect19/Sect19_20.html here]. kwami (talk) 06:49, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, thank you very much for you fast answer :) i'll try to check that website when it's back online :) --Lilyu (talk) 10:27, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Great, it's back online, it's correct : good job for remembering on which webpage you found an image 4 years earlier ! Smiley.svg --Lilyu (talk) 14:49, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Modern evolution of Esperanto
Are any references available for the things you wrote in Modern_evolution_of_Esperanto? Rikat (talk) 23:34, 2 November 2009 (UTC)


 * A lot in the Plena analiza gramatiko, other stuff by Harlow--I'd have to review it, which I don't have much time for right now. kwami (talk) 07:24, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA)
Kwami, would you consider part protecting this page for a few day? There's a couple of ppl pushing a weirder than usual "greater basque country" pov on that page and it's beginning to take up considerable amounts of my time policing it. Akerbeltz (talk) 00:28, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, but edit warring/POV disputes are not the same as "vandalism". (Unless I'm missing s.t. here.) kwami (talk) 07:22, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a mixture of both. For example, the user(s) (I think it's the same but not sure) keep changing the percentages (without apparent reason or justification) from 92% for Irish to 80% so Basque has a higher incidence. It was getting close to the 3RR, over, if you count the IP user from last night. POV because the user in question is trying to change all incidences (on the affected pages) of Basque Country to Greater Basque Country. No response to friendly suggestions either.
 * Thanks for protecting it - maybe he'll calm down a little. Akerbeltz (talk) 08:30, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

IPA for Occitan
I don't know if you noticed, but I've undone your attempt to add Occitan to the IPA pronunciation key for Catalan. I haven't gone through and fixed pages that use IPA-ca for Occitan pronunciation since I thought you might want to create an WP:IPA for Occitan and IPA-oc. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 06:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)


 * There aren't enough of them to be worth the effort. I believe the effect of your changes is that the Occitan and Provencal transcriptions are now ID'd as Catalan. kwami (talk) 09:12, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Biographies
Kwami, I have the following problems with the edits and unfortunately very little time to follow you:

1-A few scholars have bothered....,and then a contradiction follows:3 scholars opinions are stated.”A few scholars heve bothered...” is insulting for a biography.You may decide rewording it.”Some scholars have strongly contested” or something like that should be read.

2-De Hoz critics are only for one book :the first one “El origen de los Vascos” (Origin of the Basques).This was done in 1999.This should be stated for a biography.Critics do not apply to all other books published later http://books.google.com/books?q=Arnaiz-Villena&btnG=Buscar+libros&hl=es

3-The apparent Pichler critics come from an unreliable publication.Has he written these critics?This should have been removed according to Vandenberg mediation

4-Dumu Eduba is too repetitive:it needs to be stated that Lakarra only studied 32 words out of thousands and from this cannot be inferred that 85% of the linguistics work is wrong.You may decide to rewrite this and synthesize what Dumu Eduba wants to add.

Please let me know your opinion. Best regards --Virginal6 (talk) 21:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty busy in real life, so I'm not too interested in editing the article myself. As for that percentage, it's perfectly normal to take a representative sample and see how it holds up. If it looks like garbage, why would anyone take the time to check everything? I don't think the article claims anything more than that. As for early critics being used today, AFAIK the claims haven't changed very much, so they should still be applicable. It would be different if you (he?) had said, "Ah! De Hoz is correct, I must change my approach." But AFAIK that hasn't happened. Anyway, there are a couple editors who have been sympathetic to your objections in the past, and some material has been removed because of this. IMO, the thing to do is to state explicitly what your objections are on the article talk page. If you don't feel you're getting a fair shake, you can contact the editors who have proven sympathetic in the past. If you still don't like the article, you can try the dispute resolution suggestions at WP:autobiography. But if people agree that the article accurately reflects the published sources, then there isn't much else you can do. kwami (talk) 00:36, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * OK,thank you .I will follow your guidelines,but I only wanted to remove mistakes or assertions which misguide readers ,and DEFINETIVELY ,not removing criticisms.Regards--Virginal6 (talk) 20:12, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

To save you some time
÷seresin 23:38, 10 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Eh, close enough. Thanks for letting me know. kwami (talk) 01:07, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Epirus Region Page
If you check the Epirus (region) page this map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EpirusEduMap.jpg is clearly original research and clearly Greek POV. I put an original tag on it and it gets removed. A user claims it comes from all of these sources, but this is still original research to read several sources and create a map from them. As well, other sources from linguistics or anthropology do not come up with these same conclusions. Azalea pomp (talk) 22:15, 11 November 2009 (UTC)


 * You mean because it includes Thrace & Illyria & Macedon without being clear that they are "environs"? Or is there s.t. more afoot? kwami (talk) 02:19, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I have given an example on how it claims to be using these sources in its creation, but is it really? I gave the example of the John Wilkes source having Byllis as Illyrian yet the map has it as Greek.  To claim Macedonians as Greek is not claim any linguist would state as fact as so little of Macedonian is known to make such a claim.  I have given a counter map from an academic source which was made by an academic to demonstrate how very different this map is.  I am not saying that one map is better than the other, but I don't think people should put maps on Wikipedia that are clearly not based on an actual map created by an academic.  This map was created by a user who supposedly read these sources and came up with conclusions. Azalea pomp (talk) 08:53, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, it looks dubious. If he can't come up with supporting refs, I think the file should be marked for deletion on Commons, and removed from the article here. But that's a discussion for the article talk page. kwami (talk) 10:29, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I had to "or" tag the Mycenaean sites map because I am looking at the original source and it does not correlate with the map from the source. It is difficult to get to normal conversations with POV pushers. :/ Azalea pomp (talk) 21:43, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know if you have checked the Epirus (region) talk page, but we have made some progress in acknowledging the errors of the maps. I have read through many of the sources and found that the Wikipedia created maps do not correlate well enough with the maps/info in the sources.  There have been some fixing of the maps, but there is still some POV issues.  The Ottoman era map clearly shows two principle ethnic groups in Epirus yet in the text of the article, the POV pushers want to ignore the map on the page. lol  I don't think an article should contradict itself. Azalea pomp (talk) 19:59, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
 * If you check the Epirus (region) talk page, I have now brought up the point that we should just exclude Macedonia/Macedonians from the map at all due to the fact that it is the Epirus page. What do you think? Azalea pomp (talk) 21:26, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of List of shibboleths
An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is List of shibboleths. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Articles for deletion/List of shibboleths. Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:04, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

IPA-hu
I'm very sorry about that. My to IPA-hu dropped a closing bracket. I it and tested the result on the lead to Béla Bartók. Eubulides (talk) 20:02, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I figured it was s.t. simple like that. kwami (talk) 20:11, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Ping
I've sent you an e-mail, if you reply to me I can pass along the Langdon paper for the AAH. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 12:34, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

in-line diacritic
Hey there, for ever ago you mentioned that the OED has a citation where the h of ch, sh, th is described as effectively being an "in-line diacritic". Could you please refer me to a concrete example of this usage? Thanks, Dan <span style="font-size:large; line-height:.7em; font-family:'Arial Unicode MS,' Code2000, Code2001, 'Free Serif'">☺ 18:13, 22 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Henry Sweet (1877) A Handbook of Phonetics, p 174–175: "Even letters with accents and diacritics [...] being only cast for a few founts, act practically as new letters. [...] We may consider the h in sh and th simply as a diacritic written for convenience on a line with the letter it modifies." —kwami (talk) 20:52, 22 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know where you're going with this but many historical diacritics started life out as a second letter in a digraph that eventually wandered up top (e.g. diaresis in Ä (a+e), the circle in Å a+a). Akerbeltz (talk) 16:21, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Just thought the article Diacritic might benefit from a mention of this usage of the term. And Akerbeltz's comment makes me think that some information about the way diacritics came to be would be nice too. Dan <span style="font-size:large; line-height:.7em; font-family:'Arial Unicode MS,' Code2000, Code2001, 'Free Serif'">☺ 00:22, 28 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I know a couple of them: cz > ç; nn, an > ñ, ã. I thought å was from ao and only replaced aa; likewise, I'd like to see that German ä, ö have the same ae, oe origin as Swedish. But yeah, the history should be there. kwami (talk) 01:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)


 * For ä, ö and ü, German today still allows ae, oe and ue as alternative spellings, commonplace whenever ä, ö and ü are not available or hard to produce. Would it be pushing it to suggest that the "ch" in German "sch" functions as an inline diacritic, changing the sound from to ? Dan <span style="font-size:large; line-height:.7em; font-family:'Arial Unicode MS,' Code2000, Code2001, 'Free Serif'">☺  21:03, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I have seen them described as such but I can't for the life of me remember where. Akerbeltz (talk) 21:08, 28 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The fact that umlauts replaced Ve doesn't mean that the umlaut evolved from an e, though of course it might have. I'd only mention that letters found in numerous digraphs function as diacritics, but I wouldn't want to start debating idiosyncratic trigraphs like sch. kwami (talk) 01:27, 29 November 2009 (UTC)


 * That distinction between "having replaced" and "having evolved from" is important. Anyway, I think the wikipediaishest way would be to report that in publications, letters are sometimes functionally considered to be diacritics, and to provide kwami's source from "A Handbook of Phonetics" as an example. Dan <span style="font-size:large; line-height:.7em; font-family:'Arial Unicode MS,' Code2000, Code2001, 'Free Serif'">☺ 12:55, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I think you're jumping the gun here, Kwami
Given how oddly the IAU has handled dwarf planet inclusion and exclusion over the last three years, I would rather wait until an official pronouncement before I start rewriting candidate pages.  Serendi <sup style="color:#bb0000;">pod ous  21:06, 22 November 2009 (UTC)


 * But these are all candidates. There are no official pronouncements. kwami (talk) 21:18, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Angle brackets
I might not've paid attention to your recent changes of the single-guillemets to the angle brackets, but this discussion has me thinking about what basis our policy of using them to mark off orthographic items is. If we don't have a stated policy on it, we ought to make sure our choice is accurate before we construct one and encourage other editors to do the same. A search of the specific angle brackets included turned up the article Bracket, which says: "Chevrons are part of standard Chinese, and Korean punctuation, where they generally enclose the titles of books: ︿ and ﹀ or ︽ and ︾ for traditional vertical printing, and 〈 and 〉 or 《 and 》 for horizontal printing." Which makes me think that the guillemets are actually correct. What led you to believe it was 〈 and 〉?— Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 05:37, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * You're right. I had just plugged them into Wiktionary, they came up as angle brackets, and I naively took that at face value. We shouldn't be using CJK punctuation. But the orthographic symbols are angle brackets. Guillemots are just an approximation. (I think that much of the use of guillemots may be my fault. I've long used them because they're easy to type, and have replaced the less than/greater than signs with them, and it wasn't until s.o. objected that their height was incorrect that it dawned on me that I wasn't actually helping things much -- though it's much easier to automate a replacement of guillemots than the ubiquitous less/greater than signs.) kwami (talk) 06:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm, and the problem with ⟨ ⟩, which seem to be the most correct, is that they don't show up at all on my computer. The CJK angle brackets do seem to be preferable since they're closest to what we're looking for.  — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  07:43, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh. Damn.
 * They're in the maths section of Unicode. I've just been checking Google Books, and many texts use either <...> or guillemots as an approximation, even though they call them "angle brackets". However, I did found this, which uses true angle brackets for literal transliterations of Syriac, and closer to home this, which makes the [x], /x/, <x> distinction. (Also here, here, here, etc.) So it seems pretty clear that when sources say "angle brackets" are used for this, they actually do mean "angle brackets", even if not all printers stock them.
 * The CJK angle brackets mess up character spacing, and probably will cause font issues with a lot of people. (Not everyone has CJK compatibility installed.) Maybe we should just go back to guillemots, then, even if they are only half height and technically incorrect. At least they'd be easy to convert in the future (there are very few cases of guillemots being used in their normal capacity on WP, and mostly in ref sections), whereas <...> have to be converted mostly manually. kwami (talk) 08:28, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


 * To me all newly introduced proper "angle brackets" show up as square boxes (unsupported characters). I suppose I'm not the only one seeing this. It would be better to go back to plain keyboard characters. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 10:04, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Converted them (~ 50 articles) to gillemets, which will be easier to reconvert than <...>. kwami (talk) 10:50, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I was thinking the same thing, though I wasn't sure if the spacing weirdness was just me. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  16:06, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Heard back from SIL. They say U+2329 and U+232A are currently supported in their fonts. Will bring this up at Talk:IPA. kwami (talk) 02:11, 24 November 2009 (UTC)


 * [Follow up: Unicode has deprecated U+2329 and U+232A, and reassigned them CJK width. The "mathematical" angle brackets are now to be used for Western spacing, but are not yet supported by SIL fonts. kwami (talk)]

Belizean Creole
Hi. I see that you moved "Belizean Kriol language" to "Belizean Creole". "Creole" is fine to me but I think that we should keep the "language" in the article name. Frst, "Creole language" may sound redundant to linguists, but outside linguistics "Creole" often also means a ethnic group, so the title as it is now is ambiguous. Also the "creole" of linguists is a generic term and should be lower case, whereas here it is part of the language name. In fact, the name almost certainly meant in origin "the language spoken by the Creole people of Belize" rather that "the creole language of Belize". Finally, even though the language is almost always called just "Belizean Creole", its is general practice in WP to append "language" to the name of languages. Compare "English language", "Greek language", etc. What do you think? All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 15:38, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * We make an exception for creoles. If you check the 'See also' section, you'll see ten creole articles, none of which use the phrase "creole language". It just isn't normal English. (Or at least AFAIK it isn't--I could be wrong here :).) If you want to change it, I think the appropriate venue would be the WP language project, so that all such articles could be considered together. kwami (talk) 20:27, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Erromintxela
Kwami, you may remember me asking for some broad feedback on the Erromintxela article some time ago. I did eventually nominate it for GA and - much to my surprise and please - was passed on most things (including the wordlists) straight away. The main outstanding criticism centres around the lead and some stylistic issues. As writing style is definitely one of my weaker points, I was wondering if you'd be interested in helping me sort out the article? With all those featured articles under your belt, you probably have a much better graps on what might need changing - I'd be much obliged. Akerbeltz (talk) 18:40, 27 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Sure. I've started copy editing. kwami (talk) 21:38, 27 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks mate! I've answered your question on the GA nomination page by the way. Just my slightly convoluted style, I know what I meant but looking at it again, probably no one else does ;) Akerbeltz (talk) 21:51, 27 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Done for now. I've a few more questions. I'll come back later for the bits after the word tables. kwami (talk) 22:44, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Archive search box
Here is an archive search box for your talk page. You can modify it and place it according to your preferences.
 * -- Wavelength (talk) 20:06, 1 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Hey, thanks! kwami (talk) 22:38, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Talkback
Dabomb87 (talk) 22:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Replied to you again. There have been multiple discussions about formatting dates. You may want to take a look at WP:DATEPOLL, one of the most recent of these discussions. Cheers, Dabomb87 (talk) 23:27, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Gwahatike
Hi Kwamikagami,

I noticed that you reverted my addition of Gwahatike (also called Dahating) to the list of language isolates and removed the statement that Gwahatike is a language isolate from its article. Do you have any sources stating that Gwahatike is not a language isolate? I added the information that it is a language isolate because of this issue of Pacific Linguistics which states that "The Dahating... is a language isolate spoken in a number of villages sout of Saidor." Is there a reason that you do not trust this source?

Neelix (talk) 16:46, 6 December 2009 (UTC)


 * That article is from 1970, and anyway you left our article stating that it's one of the Warup languages. Ethnologue from this year also says that it's Warup. I wouldn't be surprised if it were actually an isolate lumped in with Warup in Ethnologue because of loans, but I'd like something more recent than 30 years ago to support that. (An isolate isn't just a language we don't know what to do with, but one that's been demonstrated to not be readily related to other families.)


 * If the %age of cognates is as low as the 1970 article states, then I'd think there would at least be some internal structure to the Warup family. I'll see if I can find any other data.


 * This 1998 article uses Gwahatike as a representative of the Warup family in demonstrating the eastern part of TNG. (Unfortunately, I can't see who the author is.) kwami (talk) 23:10, 6 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The 1970 article should not be discredited simply because it was written in 1970. Pacific Linguistics is a well-established publisher of linguistic information; the source is a valid one. The article recognizes that Gwahatike shares some vocabulary with other Warup languages; that doesn't keep it from being a language isolate. Neelix (talk) 15:14, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * And in the 40 years since, everyone appears to have said it's Warup. Has no-one else done work on it, that the 1970 article is the best data we have? Has comparison been done with other families, so that we know it's an isolate, and not just not Warup? In which sense was the word "isolate" used in the article? (After all, Kovai within Huon is also an isolate: in Wurm's words, a "family-level isolate" within the Huon stock.) Also, the "article" is less than a page long!


 * There's An, Jee Yong 1996. Gwahatike verb paradigms. Unpublished fieldnotes, SIL, Ukarumpa. Since the Finisterre-Huon family is identified by suppletive verbs, this might be relevant evidence, and not available in 1970.


 * Ethnologue (1974) said "DAHATING: MADANG DISTRICT, SEVERAL VILLAGES SOUTH OF SAIDOR. WEST "FINISTERRE (PP) . LANGUAGE ISOLATE, RELATED TO WARUP FAMILY". kwami (talk) 21:13, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I understand your last comment. If the 1974 article you found calls Dahating a language isolate as well, do you still contest calling the language a language isolate on its article? Neelix (talk) 22:39, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Ethnologue 1974 (ed. 8) appears to follow the 1970 article. Wurm & Z'Graggen came out in 1975, and in later editions of Ethnologue (at least by ed. 10 in 1984; I can't access ed. 9), Dahating is simply listed as Warup. I presume this follows a change in the lit. Perhaps they're only following Wurm or Z'Graggen, but the only other coverage I've seen postdating 1975 also treats it as Warup. A superficial reading of the refs suggests that classifying Gwahatike as an isolate is outdated, and it's not clear to me that it ever was considered a true isolate, even in 1970, as opposed to simply not closely related to its neighbors. There are hundreds of "isolates" in New Guinea, in the loose sense that Greek and Albanian are isolates. kwami (talk) 22:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * If Dahating was once but is no longer considered a language isolate, what do you think of placing it in the "Former isolates" list on the Papuan languages article? Neelix (talk) 21:51, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * That's a comparison of the two all-Papua classifications, Wurm and Ross. If we start adding isolates from before Wurm's consolidation, I don't know how we'd ever get a complete list. Also, I don't know in what sense Gwahatike is an isolate: if it was a "family-level isolate", then it wouldn't be listed regardless. kwami (talk) 23:29, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Can you think of any way to determine what level of isolate Gwahatike is (or has been considered to be)? It would be nice to say something definitive on the Gwahatike language article. Neelix (talk) 23:42, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I can't see the entire article, only bits & pieces of it. Of what I can see, all I know is that he used the term "isolate". Perhaps he defined it elsewhere, or perhaps he meant it absolutely; I have no idea. It does seem that once Z'Graggen came out, everyone switched to his classification. Of course, he could have glossed over or misunderstood s.t., and the 1970 article is right after all, so it is worth mentioning: do we even know the author of the article? kwami (talk) 00:16, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Map
Hi Kwami. You seem to be active on the Language family article. I was wondering if you know who made the new language families map? I would like to use the map with proper attrib, but can't figure out who the contributor is. Thanks a bunch! - Chinmay7 (talk) 04:42, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * According to the file history, it was User:Mabuhelwa. I haven't seen the map before. kwami (talk) 07:03, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Melbourne
Take it there. Josh Parris 11:12, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24-hour period. Additionally, users who perform several reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. When in dispute with another editor you should first try to discuss controversial changes to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. Should that prove unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. Please stop the disruption, otherwise you may be blocked from editing. Josh Parris 11:44, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Why don't you issue the same warning to the editor who has reverted two others, and who has actually violated 3RR? kwami (talk) 11:47, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Because you beat me to it. I had to look up the appropriate templates, policies and guidelines because it's been quite a while since I've witnessed an edit war.  I intended to slap the warning on both your talk page and User talk:203.220.171.199. You're an experienced editor, I'm sorry - I thought you needed a good wp:TROUT. Josh Parris 11:56, 11 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I probably needed one. kwami (talk) 00:09, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Article rescue
FYI: the page User:Ohms_law/Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, an article which you contributed to, has recently been userfied. I planned on changing it to an article more generally about the Swedish Naming Laws eventually, so and assistance you can give in this respect would be more than welcome. Thanks! — V = I * R  (talk to Ω) 12:09, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

December 2009
Please do not add content without citing verifiable and reliable sources, as you did to Hyderabad, India. Before making any potentially controversial edits, it is recommended that you discuss them first on the article's talk page. Please review the guidelines at Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. Thank you.  Neil N  <sup style="font-family:Calibri;"> talk to me  16:04, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The ref's on Andhra Pradesh. I'll move it over. kwami (talk) 16:11, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi, I read the source and can't see where it says Hyderabad will be the new state capital. This is still up in the air - see . -- Neil N  <sup style="font-family:Calibri;"> talk to me  16:22, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks. Hadn't seen that. kwami (talk) 16:24, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem. The statement should be removed from both articles, I think? -- Neil N  <sup style="font-family:Calibri;"> talk to me  16:27, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course. Done. kwami (talk)

Languages
Yes, it looks like there is a difference in the way the API returns inward links compared with the way whatlinkshere does, which something else had made me suspect. I will file an AWB bug once I remember what the other piece of evidence was. As far as the un-ref goes it is better to have an external link (or better references) section as at "Tetete lanaguage", I will look into automatically adding this. One of the reasons for getting rid of the "Erik9bot" category and replacing it with a tag was visibility, so that the (relatively few) which are wrong can be quickly fixed, unfortunately the same "tags are evil" group that made the cat-not-tag the initial approach also argued against visible tags on stubs - community consensus can change this at any point of course now the tags are in place, we can make them visible for certain topics for example, should we desire. Also it wuld be possible to create "unreffed XXX articles/stubs" categories where that is considered helpful by a project/group/editor. Rich Farmbrough, 18:51, 17 December 2009 (UTC).
 * Okay. Many of these lang stubs are unlikely to ever have any refs apart from Ethnologue thru the ISO tag, so automatically converting them may be a good idea. (I personally think it's odd to have an external link that merely repeats the ISO link, but it's probably a good idea for general accessibility. kwami (talk) 07:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Na'vi
Hi! It looks to be quite certain that Na'vi will soon have a following of people that want to learn the language so I created a Facebook group for it yesterday. I also added a note that you're probably one of the best people online to contact about the language, since without a published grammar all we have is the dialogue from the movie and interviews with the creator from which to figure it out, and you seem to be doing the most legwork in that area.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=240828625238

Mithridates (talk) 16:53, 18 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay. The author says he'll have a sketch up on a linguistics site soon; I'll incorporate it here. kwami (talk) 18:07, 18 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Article greatly expanded, actually respectable now. If you or anyone in your group is able to identify additional morphemes, I'd be interested in knowing about it. kwami (talk) 11:48, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Great, I put up a link there showing the changes over the past day. BTW, do you have a Facebook ID as well? Or are you the person that added a comment a few hours ago on the possessive suffix? Mithridates (talk) 12:40, 19 December 2009 (UTC)


 * No, I'm not on Facebook. We also have peyä for 3sg.poss. kwami (talk) 13:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Punjabi Language
Why have you removed my addition, when according to your page you have never resided in the UK? this is the English Language edition and it is a [Colloquialism|colloquial] term used in the UK. 80.101.231.27 (talk) 14:52, 19 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Because it's not encyclopedic. Please cover it in a section on names for the language, not in the intro. kwami (talk) 14:58, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is. To say that Scouse isn't a name for Liverpudlian is just as encyclopedic, it is not trivia - which I agree is not encyclopedic. 80.101.231.27 (talk) 15:13, 19 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Stop edit warring or I will block you. It's a colloquialism at best. Take it to the Discussion page if you don't know a good place to put it. kwami (talk) 15:21, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

This is the English Language Wikipedia and it is an English term - if you want to remove colloquialism you will be editing 100,000.00 of pages. If those edits can stay so can mine. Check out the English pages on Liverpudlian redirected to Liverpool and Scouse. In this English Wikipedia we have thousands of pages dedicated to colloquialism, so you have made the decision that these are no longer valid? Riveira2 (talk) 15:30, 19 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Take it to the Discussion page. kwami (talk) 15:34, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Minimal pair question
Do you know of languages that have a minimal pair for a/ɑ other than southern American English time/Tom?--Curtis Clark (talk) 22:02, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, French patte "paw" vs pâte "paste". A bit old-fashioned, but some people still make the distinction. kwami (talk) 06:31, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
 * In Dutch there are many minimal pairs with them. It is a fully developed phonemic distinction. For example (mat) and  (measure), or  (ban) and  (job). &minus;Woodstone (talk) 09:34, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks.--Curtis Clark (talk) 15:44, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

An article you have worked on is up for deletion
Characters and wildlife in Avatar is now sent to AFD. This message is being sent to everyone who worked on it, who isn't already there.  D r e a m Focus  19:54, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Fine by me! kwami (talk) 19:59, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Heiltsuk dialect -> language
Noting your change of the article's title to Heiltsuk dialect, and I suppose with Oowekyala there was no need for a name change because that title is the name of that dialect, on the one hand "Heiltsuk language" is the most common use; but if the "dialect" paradigm is the way things are gonna be, then the same should apply to Saanich language, Klallam language, Lummi language etc which are the subdialects of North Straits Salish....there's a few other examples like this in the general region - Kaska, Tahtlan and Nahanni I believe, and some others I can't recall just now....also there's Sinixt language which SFAIK is a dialect of Okanagan (or is it Colville, or are all three "cousin" dialects of an unnamed language, which maybe includes Sanpoil?).Skookum1 (talk) 15:33, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, they should be, for consistency. Are all those changes acceptable to you? You seem to be working on these languages as much as anyone. I'll have to get back to this in a few days -- please remind me if I forget! kwami (talk) 16:23, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not a linguist, more a historian and someone familiar with BC's cultural/historical geography. What I do know is that Heiltsuk refer to their dialect as a language, the same is true of the Lummi etc....but certainly in technical terms some consistency is needed; the subtle distinction between what is a dialect and what is a laaguage I'm not qualified to talk about; except to observe that Gitxsan and Nisga'a have been talked about as being dialects, and there'd be an argument that Coast Tsimshian/Smalgyax and the Gitxsan-Nisga'a pairing could be seen as the Coast and Interior dialects, respectively, of Tsimshian.  or that Makah and Ditidaht are dialects of a language whose other main dialect(s) are the Nuu-chah-nulth language (what was referred to in very old sources as "the language of the Aht" or "the Aht language", and so on....Straits, Upriver and Downriver Halkomelem at least have distinct names, which isn't the case with Heiltsuk (at least not in English).  My main issue here, I suppose, is that the choice of dialect vs language is something of a political issue, as each group may consider its dialect to be a self-standing language; as with Witsuwitin within Dakelh.....more on this later, it's Xmas day/evening and I'm chowing down on junk food (crackers with blue cheese and Ardennes pâté)....Skookum1 (talk) 02:21, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * As with major Chinese lects, I think we should at least discuss the discrepancy and ambiguity of terms. Yes, after Xmas. kwami (talk) 07:09, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Middle East
kwami, there's a guy edit warring at Middle East. I changed the relationship of Turkish to Turkic from "Altaic" and noted that Altaic is not a widely accepted term. He keeps reverting back to Altaic even though he's not a linguist and doesn't know what he's talking about. I need some support there. (Taivo (talk) 20:17, 26 December 2009 (UTC))
 * Thanks. Damn, you're fast :)  (Taivo (talk) 20:23, 26 December 2009 (UTC))

Articles for deletion nomination of Na'vi language
I have nominated Na'vi 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/Na'vi 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. > RUL3R <sup style="margin-left:1.0ex;">>trolling <sub style="margin-left:-10.0ex;">>vandalism  10:58, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Northern Cyprus moved against consensus
Kwami, a nationalist has moved Northern Cyprus to Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus against consensus. This has happened before with nationalist editors. I can't move it back this time for some reason (sometimes I can and sometimes I can't). Could you move it back? The idiot left the talk page at Northern Cyprus even. Thanks. Hope your holidays have been great. (Taivo (talk) 15:15, 27 December 2009 (UTC))


 * Never mind, I just noticed the guy did it with a cut and paste. Cheers.  (Taivo (talk) 15:19, 27 December 2009 (UTC))


 * Holidays are going well, thanks. Discovered Na'vi, which is fun. I wonder how many people are attracted to linguistics because of projects like Na'vi and Klingon, and then move on to more pressing things like language documentation?


 * I do kinda wonder about the choice of name for the N. Cyprus article, but it's of no real concern to me. Happy Holidays to you as well. kwami (talk) 21:03, 27 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I show my Intro Linguistics students the segment on the deluxe edition DVD of Star Trek III where Marc Okrand describes his invention of Klingon. It's one of the more popular things I do in that class.  (Taivo (talk) 01:21, 28 December 2009 (UTC))

Thank you
It seems everywhere I turn lately, I come across another article that you have worked very hard on and have greatly improved. Since I don't feel I have the authority to award you a barnstar (and since you seem to have so many already), I figured I'd just leave a note on your talk page (which, incidentally, is quite a mess at this point in time). So thank you very much for your hard work and dedication to improving the linguistics section of Wikipedia. (As an aside: do you have an Internet existence outside of Wikipedia that I may be interested in knowing about? Thanks again.) &mdash;Gordon P. Hemsley&rarr; &#x2709; 16:19, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the kind words, and no, I don't have an outside internet existence. kwami (talk) 20:51, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

AAH
I have been watching Aquatic ape hypothesis for some time and am irritated by the conflation of AAH with pseudoscience. Accordingly, I have no problem with your most recent edit, but I suggest that it should be self-reverted because the article is protected and an edit under that condition may cause trouble. Johnuniq (talk) 03:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)


 * We've had agreement for some time now that blogs should not be used as refs, but that we should restrict ourselves with RS's, as we should with any other WP article. And we have a good RS for this article, Langdon, which Mokele has admitted he simply doesn't want to bother citing. If he wishes to provide reliable & verifiable refs for those paragraphs, I'll be happy to add them back in myself if no-one else does, but I'm not going to dumb down the encyclopedia because of his hysterics. Sorry. kwami (talk) 04:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Hardest language
Thanks for helping clean up some of the mess that is the Hardest language article. If you didn't notice yet, I left a proposal (Talk:Hardest language) to try and redefine the scope and purpose of the article so there might be some hope of cleaning it up. I also recently came this 1999 Foreign Language Education article which might have some useful information (or at least be a helpful starting point) for rewriting some of the article, if you're interested. <b class="Unicode">r ʨ anaɢ</b> talk/contribs 01:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Good. I'm adding a section that some languages are demonstrably more complex than others, at least if we look at the grammar rather than the entire sociology of use. kwami (talk) 01:18, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * But the whole premise of that article is wrong. The "hardest language to learn", logically, is the one that is impossible to learn--Sentinelese language.  Since there is not a word recorded and since the natives of Sentinel try to kill anyone who attempts to land there it cannot be learned.  Therefore impossible is always harder than anything else.  Cheers :)) (Taivo (talk) 03:41, 3 January 2010 (UTC))
 * Ah, you make me laugh! Maybe we should put that in ... kwami (talk) 05:07, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

AfD for list of langs by native speakers
Gidday kwami, how's things? As a one-time major contributor, you maybe interested in the AfD that has been raised for this, at Articles for deletion/List of languages by number of native speakers according to two websites...cheers, --cjllw<font color="#DAA520"> ʘ TALK 22:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Grammatical number: Quadral and Trial.
Kwamikagami: I put "according to whom?" and "which?" notes on your two most recent edits to the "trial" section of the "grammatical number" article. I didn't undo them, I only asked for specificity and for a cited reference. I undid your most recent edit to the "quadral" section, because the only reference given directly contradicts what you said. I thought of several reasons for this; among them, (1) maybe the reference (a particular edition of Corbett's book) is out-of-date (2) maybe Corbett's book only talks about one of those languages and the information you give is about a different one. I hope you can tell I'm not trying to start an "edit war"; I just want the facts you know to be backed up, and not to erase the "facts" I know unless they're not "facts" after all. Read pp 21 ff, section 2.2.3, for a list of languages that have trial. The book says Larike has trial only in its pronouns, but it doesn't say about any of the other languages that they don't have it in their nouns. It shows several languages having their trial become a paucal, and one having its paucal become a trial. Read pp. 26 ff, section 2.2.5, about quadrals, and about Sursurunga, Tangga, Lihir, and Marshallese. I haven't found a reference that states clearly that some language does have trial in its nouns; but neither have a found one that states none of them do. Thanks --Eldin raigmore (talk) 17:45, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
 * BTW compare .--Eldin raigmore (talk) 17:58, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


 * No, that's fine. I've read elsewhere that trials are only found on PNs, and never found a ref or example to contradict that. I'll try to find that ref.
 * Thanks; I hope you do. --Eldin raigmore (talk) 17:23, 7 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Whether or not Tok Pisin has trial depends on the native language of its speakers: generally it does for Austronesians, and doesn't for Papuans. I don't about native speakers in Port Morseby.
 * Thanks, that's good to know. Isn't that a dialect difference, though, not a register difference? Do you have a ref for it? And do you think that information should be included in the article?  And BTW how many native speakers does Tok Pisin have? --Eldin raigmore (talk) 17:23, 7 January 2010 (UTC)


 * You're misreading Corbett. It's trial that is the lesser paucal and quadral that is the greater paucal. That's quite clear on p 26. For Marshallese, "quad" is simply paucal, not greater or lesser. kwami (talk) 20:06, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
 * BTW I just finished reading the article after the edits you made between 20:00 and 22:00 6 Jan 2010. It now looks just fine to me, and supported by the references.  So it turns out the long discussion I had previously posted below does not require any change to the text of the article.  You needn't reply if you don't want to, since any remaining questions I have don't affect the article's text.--Eldin raigmore (talk) 17:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * About at least one of those languages I had indeed misread at least some of what he said.
 * You could be right about the rest as well, for all I can prove. But if memory serves me you also could be partially wrong.
 * Because I've turned in the copy I borrowed and Google Books won't show all the pages, I can't prove it; but, I think it's one way for some of the languages he mentions and the other way for some of the others he mentions.
 * On page 22 he says that in Anindilyakwa what was traditionally a paucal has now become a true trial. On p. 25 he mentions at least one of the Ambrym languages of Vanuatu, four of the Malaitan languages of the Solomon Islands, and two Australian languages, as examples of languages whose paucals were originally trials.  He also mentions Lihir (spoken near New Ireland) as a language with five grammatical numbers; either {singular, dual, trial, paucal, plural} or {singular, dual, lesser paucal, greater paucal, plural}. (He says he isn't sure whether that middle number is a true trial or is instead a lesser paucal; if it's a lesser paucal, Lihir's system is like Sursurunga's, but if it's a true trial, it's unique to the best of his knowledge at the time he wrote the book).  On page 26 he notes that Lihir's paucal (or, its greater paucal, if that's what it is) has no clear relationship to any related language's number for "four", but its trial (or, lesser paucal, as the case may be) is clearly related to the Proto-Oceanic numeral for "three" (but less clearly, if at all, to the modern Lihir numeral "three").
 * In section 2.2.5 beginning on page 26 he discusses reports of "quadral" in Sursurunga. He says the so-called "quadral" is used for (1) four things, and (2) four or more things in dyadic relationships with each other, and (3) 1st-person-inclusive-of-2nd-person imperatives (or hortatory) involving four or more people; later he mentions (4) larger groups of four or more for which the so-called "trial" is not appropriate.  He says the so-called "trial" is used for small groups of three or four, and for nuclear families of any size.  Yes, he does suggest the glosses "few" for the lesser paucal ("trial") and "several" for the greater paucal ("quadral"), but the actual meanings he discusses are more complicated than that; a group such as a nuclear family, in which every member is related to every other member, might be referred to in the lesser paucal, while a less tightly-knit group, in which every member is related to some other member, but not necessarily to every other member, might be referred to in the greater paucal.
 * On page 29 he discusses Tangga. Like Lihir, its system is either {sing, du, tri, pauc, plur} or {sing, du, lsrpau, grtpau, plur}; but unlike Lihir, the greater paucal is clearly descended diachronically from the numeral for "four".
 * He then goes on to discuss Marshallese, beginning also on page 29. It has five grammatical numbers, and the one formally called "quadral" is either a paucal or a greater paucal.  Unfortunately pp 30-31 are unavailable to me at the moment.
 * --Eldin raigmore (talk) 17:23, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Glossing abbreviations
Maybe you should create a template for edits like this? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 21:07, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, good idea. kwami (talk) 23:47, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Well actually, there are only a few dozen such articles, since for normal glossing you'd just use the sc template. Since I've already added most of the links, I don't know if there'd be much benefit to a template. kwami (talk) 23:51, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

shibboleths
I notice that you have contributed to List of shibboleths; i have made a [suggestion] on the talk page that you might be interested in commenting on. If that article no longer holds your interest, i apologise for intruding, and return you to previously scheduled programming. Cheers, LindsayHi 08:42, 9 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, but I'm more interested in the Victorian-era stuff that makes us think we can't "split" infinitives (there's nothing to split) or "dangle" prepositions. kwami (talk) 08:56, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Scrambling typefaces
I noticed that you reverted my edit on Na'vi language, suggesting that it scrambled typefaces. But isn't that exactly what your revert did: scramble typefaces?

If I have something that I'd like to emphasize, by using italics, bold text, colored text or something else, I typically don't want to emphasize commas and periods as well – the only exception being when the punctuation marks in question are part of that logical element of text that I want to emphasize.

For instance, suppose that I want to emphasize “A” and “C” in the text “There is A, B, and C.” I would have to do it like this (I'm using color here instead of italics or bold text to exaggerate): “There is ', B, and '.” Note that the colored text does include neither comma nor period. This is how your edit would make it look: “There is ' B, and '” Highlighting comma and period like this, neither of which are part of the logical element of text that I want to emphasize, looks completely unacceptable: notice in particular how the comma that follows “A” looks different from the one that follows “B”.

Maybe I am mistaken, and there is in fact a policy on Wikipedia that states exactly this (in which case I would appreciate you directing me to it), but in my opinion we should remove punctuation marks from emphasized words on the Na'vi language article; there are exceptions to this (obviously where punctuation marks are part of the emphasized text element) but I think that I didn't touch any of these with my first edit. Sebastian… talk 10:45, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * No, no policy, just a matter of taste. But when you mix italic and non-italic typefaces, the symbols tend to bump into each other, which can make the result look sloppy. AFAIK, the general practice in publishing is to italicize any punctuation that is in contact with italic text.
 * BTW, I would agree with not making punctuation red or bold if not emphasized, because that does not interfere with the layout of the type. kwami (talk) 10:53, 12 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Right, I see. The issue seems greatly browser-dependent though, depending on the typographic capabilities (esp. kerning) of the software and the machine's font setup. Firefox (at least on my Linux machine) seems to leave too much space when (non-italic) punctuation follows (italic) text. Opera (again, at least on my Linux machine) seems to do it right; neither too much spacing nor characters overlapping, though I've seen the latter happen on other machines. So, yes, let's stick to what we have – I never noticed the problem until I used another browser to look at the formatting. Sebastian… talk 11:07, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Worcestershire IPA
'' The weird thing is that in RP it really is /ˈwʊstər/, with a real /r/. You hear that if you put "is" after it. Well, in real RP, anyway. Maybe not in local Worcester dialect. So we might could say "locally /wʊstə/", but not "rp: /wʊstə/".'' I'm sorry  Kwami, but  I  can't  let this go, but  I'm  not  going  to  respond on that  talk page. Your are quite wrong. It's totally the opposite. I come from five miles outside Worcester. Malvern is one of the towns in  the the UK with  the most  marked use of RP almost  to  the extent that  RP is its local  accent, and an awfully  rather posh  one at that,  so  snobs with  posh accents like ours certainly  know how Worcester is pronounced by the masses. Neither of the 'r' s in Worcester are pronounced by  the educated majority. However, if you go  to  work  wearing  a pitchfork, you  most  probably  will  roll them all!. --Kudpung (talk) 15:09, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I wasn't aware that anyone pronounced the first R in "Worcester". Rhotic-speaking Americans sure don't. But AFAIK, linking R is still considered RP. Am I not correct? If so, then Worcester is, not . I understand that this would be obscured by many supposedly RP speakers who have intrusive R, but AFAIK intrusive R in RP is still stigmatized. If you're arguing that either linking R has been dropped from RP, or that intrusive R has become accepted as RP, I'd like to see something verifiable to that effect. kwami (talk) 21:35, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Rather than continue to be accused of ignoring your questions: I think the onus is on you  to take note of what  dozens of other editors have been trying to  tell  you. The fact is, that in  the best and most  formal versions of RP there never was a linking  R and is indeed stigmatised by  highly  educated speakers.--Kudpung (talk) 21:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Molken and the AAH
Hola,

On the AAH talk page we were discussing the Molken (Moken?) as evidence of a human aquatic adaptation. I was farting about on underwater vision and found this article suggesting their abilities may be due to training rather than evolution. Thought you'd be interested. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 15:43, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Wow, that is interesting! Thanks! kwami (talk) 21:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm having a discussion with an editor about the second paragraph of the AAH section at bipedalism, but as part of that discussion this turned up. Thought you'd be interested and I don't know if it's worth integrating anything.  Also if you can get a full text, I wouldn't mind a copy.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 00:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Hey, that's right on topic! If you can think of a good way to integrate it, I'd encourage you to. Unfortunately, I don't have access to it, and anything quotably related to the AAH would probably be in an implications section at the end. Since plants like this can grow in water, what, 2m deep? and early hominids were 1½m tall? this would encourage diving, and certainly wading. Of course, as they say, lots of monkeys root around in the water, so we'd have to assume that's just a starting point, which we really don't have any evidence for.


 * BTW, I have watched a young swamp monkey hold its breath for extended periods of time while swimming underwater playing with otters (and even chasing them underwater! his mother had to reach in and yank him out when he swam past, because he wasn't coming up), and there is now film coverage of (amphibious) proboscis monkeys walking upright, evidently carrying their babies on their hip the way we do, when on dry land, so there really might be s.t. to all this. kwami (talk) 00:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
 * As I just said on my talk page though, we have to be careful of recentism and wary of this being the result of a single research group that never catches on. I'll try e-mailing the lead author and seeing what tumbles out.  All depends on the paper and how it's used from here on...
 * Of course, it could be a quantum shift in the paleoanthropology community towards a more aquatic model of human origins. Only time will tell - but I'd still say it's too soon to rewrite the whole page.  Could certainly be integrated into bipedalism (in particular replacing all the primary sources currently in use in the AAH section) as well as cited in the AAH page itself.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 11:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Aramaic language
Kwami, there's an IP edit warrior at Aramaic language. Would you mind taking a look? Thanks. (Taivo (talk) 22:10, 15 January 2010 (UTC))


 * Blocked. There may be a point in there, so I told him to take it to the discussion page. kwami (talk) 22:46, 15 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks. (Taivo (talk) 23:07, 15 January 2010 (UTC))

Language Isolate
I can find references to Korean language being Altaic in general, and rarely a language isolate. Can you put in some citations for the Language Isolate theory. :) --Objectiveye (talk) 04:29, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Just about anything. Ethnologue, for one:
 * Scholars differ as to whether or not Korean is related to Japanese. Some suggest that both languages are possibly distantly related to the Altaic group.
 * Also,
 * Some dialects are not easily intelligible with others,
 * but I don't see "Koreanic" in classifications unless it also includes ancient languages, which are mostly too sparsely attested to say much about. kwami (talk) 04:34, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I noticed in most linguistics books that Korean and sometimes Japanese are classified as Altaic. If the language isolate theory is dominate then please put in a reference that states the Korean language is generally classified by most linguists as a language isolate. Since most linguistics books classify Korean as Macro-Altaic I think that should be the dominant theory. And only mention Korean as a possible Isolate in the Korean language section. --Objectiveye (talk) 04:44, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know which "most linguistics books" you're reading. Korean has not been classified as Altaic to general acceptance, though there have been numerous attempts to do so. Since we do not have Altaic as an established family, it would be odd to classify Korean as Altaic. kwami (talk) 04:54, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Cambridge Journal of linguistics also classifies Korean as Altaic, I think we need the language isolate reference that states this is the majority view before we can put Korean back in the Language isolate section. By the way Jeju is a dialect that can be classified separately. --Objectiveye (talk) 04:48, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Jeju is only occasionally classified as a separate language.
 * ELL2, under "Korean", says it's Altaic, but under Altaic, only says that "according to some scholars, this designation also includes Korean and Japanese." This has been controversial for a long time. Best IMO to err on the side of caution.
 * Anyway, this can be taken up on the Altaic discussion page for better input than I could give. kwami (talk) 04:54, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, thanks for your thoughts, but before we conclude anything we should follow what most reference books state which is generally to include Korean as Altaic with some debate. But until majority of the linguistics books start to classify Korean as a isolate we should wait until then to put Korean back in the definate language isolate section. Thanks --Objectiveye (talk) 05:03, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I went to the debate site as you suggested and there are way more references then I was expecting, I'm going to change it back to language isolate and stay out of this one. Thanks for your suggestion. :) --Objectiveye (talk) 05:42, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

IPA rhrotic r 'n stuff
"The weird thing is that in RP it really is /ˈwʊstər/, with a real /r/. You hear that if you put 'is' after it. Well, in real RP, anyway. Maybe not in local Worcester dialect. So we might could say 'locally /wʊstə/', but not 'rp: /wʊstə/" I realise that you  dare a linguist  of some standing  and that  you  have shared your extensive knowledge with WP, but  with  the above comment you  wonderfully wrong of course, it  is exactly  the opposite of what  you are saying -  and what  the heck is real  RP? I come from just six miles outside Worcester. Malvern is one of the towns in  the the UK with  the most marked use of RP, almost  to  the extent of it  being its local  accent, and an awfully rather posher one than the 'southern' or Home Counties RP that some liguists mistakenly  claim to  be 'standard' British English. You must  not  forget that "It is the business of educated people to speak so that no-one may be able to tell in what county their childhood was passed." (A. Burrell: A Handbook for Teachers in Public Elementary Schools). Malvern is a Mecca of some of the most elite of British boarding schools; it  is a place a where daily clothing is by default, Burberry,  green welly  boots or  Veldtshoen, and thick wooly  stockings. People carry hockey sticks, lacross sticks, or shooting sticks everywhere, and drive their kids to  school  and go  to the mall  in  Landrovers with  permanently attached empty horseboxes (I often feel  that  Malvern and its mansions, manors, and manners should have been the model  for Midsomer Murders). You go  into  a pub's lounge bar and nearly everyone standing at the counter is a 'Sir' somebody  or other with  an accent  to  match, but  wearing  worn out tweeds and looking  as if they've just  come in  from  planting potatoes. Neither of the 'r' s in Worcester are pronounced by  the educated majority. However, if like some of the few, you  use the other room in  the pub (the one with  the dartboard and pool table), or go to  work  wearing  a pitchfork, you  most  probably  will  roll them all. And roll around in draught cider (with  a rhotic final  'r') too! On British  accents, probably  the best  authority is  Peter Trudgill with  whom I've had the greatest  honour of working  in  the past, but  no one seems to mention  him. He's worth reading. As you have never been to the UK it  might  help  fill the gaps ;)  --Kudpung (talk) 08:59, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I enjoy your replies, but you have a way of replying without answering the question. Are you saying that, where you're from, people do not use linking ars? and that this is considered proper speech? kwami (talk) 09:14, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I think  I  addressed your statement  above with  perfect  accuracy, after all I  went  to  great  lengths, and with a touch of comic relief thrown in, to demonstrate that  I do come from  the area and ought  to know what I'm talking about, irrespective of my  long  career in  linguistics. I am definitely not saying that, where I'm from, people do not use linking ars - in  fact  I  never broached the subject of it at all :) --Kudpung (talk) 09:21, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I appreciate the comic relief. But actually, you did broach it: You have implied if not said that "Worcester" is . That would mean that it has no linking ar. kwami (talk) 09:28, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Impressive
Quite impressive work down there on Na'vi language. One month and so many details. Nice work. --TudorTulok (talk) 14:26, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Now if we can just keep it on Wikipedia ... kwami (talk) 14:30, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I completely agree! Great job! On this Wikipedia issue: would it be such a bad idea to move over to Wikibooks? It's still part of the Wikimedia project, and it would offer us more flexibility in what we put into the article/book. The article on Wikipedia could then focus more on the history and development of the language, not so much on the grammar itself. Also, maybe we could invite Frommer to work on the Wikibook? It would be citable as an original source then, right? Sebastian… talk 15:40, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * He hasn't shown much enthusiasm for that, and I think he probly has his own projects in mind. As for Wikibooks, the nice thing about being here is the rigor. If you look at LearnNa'vi, they're making up all kinds of stuff, most of which will turn out to be wrong. I've been very careful to use only samples of existing Na'vi in this article, with I think one exception (the transitive construction for giving) where Frommer explained the difference in English. (Though even with that there were a couple things that turned out to be mistranscribed.) On Wikibooks, I'm afraid people would continually make up "clearer" examples, and before long it wouldn't be Frommer's language any more. Let the LearnNa'vi community give the language a life of its own; I'm trying to be as close to canon as possible. kwami (talk) 20:55, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Right, rigor sure is a nice thing here. But would it really be that different on Wikibooks? I mean, even here virtually anybody can come up with “clearer” examples and put them in the article – in which case you would probably have to revert them. I think it all depends on how the Na’vi language book would be titled: the title and introduction must clearly state that it is not intended to be a tutorial on how to speak or write Na’vi, but simply a complete (or striving to be complete) reference to the grammar, with a particular focus on using only canon material; just what we have here right now. I really don't see how Wikibooks is different from Wikipedia in this matter, except that Wikipedia probably is not the right place to elaborate much more on the grammar – the article is getting rather long already. Sebastian… talk 21:28, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Also, Wikibooks has the Revision review feature enabled:
 * “Wikibooks uses the FlaggedRevs extension (also known as flagged revisions or stable revisions) so that editors and reviewers can review page revisions for quality. Reviewed pages are said to be stable. / This feature allows readers who are not logged in, or have set their stability preferences accordingly, to be served with stable versions for pages where they exist. This makes low activity books more resistant to vandalism. / Regular contributors are automatically given editor status by the software. Editors automatically review pages at the lowest setting (called sighting a page) when they save, so active books will usually have contributions by non-editors added shortly after they are committed.”
 * So, Wikibooks might be even better suited to keep a “clean” article on the language than Wikipedia is. Just my two cents. Sebastian… talk 22:12, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

IPA (cont)
Kwami, this is contradictory to  the Wikipedia assertion that  mute letters should be shown as pronounced phonems in the IPA transcription.: "It is not expected that speakers of any one dialect will pronounce a word or name exactly as we transcribe it; rather, by using this key, they should understand how to pronounce it in their own dialect. In order to show how individuals pronounce their name in their dialect, or how inhabitants pronounce a place name in the local dialect," And your section on Narrow versus broad transcription is unsourced and therefore possible inviting suggestions that  it  might  be considered by  some to be OR and/or POV :)--Kudpung (talk) 03:37, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * You make broad claims without backing them up, and without answering the questions I have in return, despite repeated requests. It's getting old. Take it somewhere else. kwami (talk) 04:26, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * You(ve accused me of not answering  questions before - Is that  because you   re tired of being wrong? The broad statement  in  the italics is your BTW.--Kudpung (talk) 09:50, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * No, you have yet to show me I'm wrong in a way I'm capable of understanding. You'll have to dumb it down some more. Of course, it's easier to assume bad faith on my part than to make that effort. kwami (talk) 10:17, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh golly, now you're accusing me of accusing you  of bad faith? Heck, I'm  not  one of those catty  types of editors. However,I've explained three times over what's wrong with the above statement  in italics, (because it reflects  what  was wrong  with most  of the conversation  on that  IPA talk page,) and I'm  at  loss to  know how, without  insulting your intelligencence and the enormous effort  you  have put into  the IPA article, I can explain  it  any  better. Furthermore, as I  have already  explained several  times before, I'm not  an expert  on the IPA per se, even if I  use it  and teach it  at  graduate level. The statement  is wrong  because it's not  true, it's POV, and it's OR, further more you've never even been to the UK. What more do  you  want? But please don(t  try  WP:CIVIL on me, I'm only  trying to  help -  see my  user page .I  prefer not to even chime in with  Wikipedia linguistic topics -  but  I  was asked, and I had to give my  two  ha'porth. Did you  get  round to  looking at  what  the Encyclopedia Britannica says about  the IPA for instance? --Kudpung (talk) 11:44, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * In order to continue, I need to know whether you have linking or intruding ar or not, something you've so far refused to say. Without that, I can't evaluate your claim. So, would you, speaking your best (snobbiest?), say "Worcester is home" (or any appropriate linking environment) with an /r/ before "is"? If you don't, would it be considered correct to do so? Then, take "Anglia is home" -- is there an /r/ there? If there is, is that considered correct? kwami (talk) 12:08, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I've tried to answered all your other questions already, in  all the threads, and as pleasantly  as possible, but  maybe you are too busy  to  read for detail. I can  understand that. However, now you  come at  me with  a new  question  on  linguistics to which  you  know I know the answer, but  you  also  know that I  can't  provide it here without fear  of  trespassing  into  POV and OR. Furthermore I'm not really  interested in  discussing technicalities of the IPA here. I think  I  have suitably  explained that  my  beef is with the way  your IPA page has been  misinterpreted  to  revert otherwise correct  IPA spellings of British place names. I  have adequately  addressed the issue the  my advice was asked on  and which precipitated the OP's new section  on the IPA talk page, and not  without  some support.  I will find a suitable motion, and table it  on a sub page for a formal  debate. If consensus then asserts that  the world is square, I'll just  have to  abide by  it ;) At least  I  can  then get  back to editing and creating  the articles that  appeal to  my  leisure instincts rather than have to  continue my  routing day's work on the WP when I  get  home from the office. Try  to take it easy  Kwami,  we're all volunteers here. --Kudpung (talk) 15:40, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * If you're not interested on this, then why are you on my talk page harping about it? And you've provided nothing; this time you actually said that I "know you can't provide" the answer. What nonsense! I'm simply trying to ascertain where the misunderstanding between us lies, and you have repeatedly refused to cooperate. Language is an inherently cooperative enterprise: if you're not willing to cooperate, there's no point in having a discussion. I'll post on your motion that your argument is incoherent (not just to me, but to the other bewildered editors in this discussion), and that you adamantly refuse to clarify anything for the purpose of finding common ground. kwami (talk) 23:16, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Closure of Sango Wikipedia
There is currently a second proposal for the Closure of Sango Wikipedia. You are encouraged to voice your opinion regarding this matter. --202.36.179.66 (talk) 04:12, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Korean hardest language according to FSI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hardest_language
 * Could you give the source for "Korean was long ranked the most difficult language for English speakers by the FSI"? Laws dr (talk) 18:28, 18 January 2010 (UTC)


 * It's in some article history, I forget where. Sorry, can't tell you much more than that. kwami (talk) 22:45, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Language Isolate
Tell me the reason why you removed Japanese from the list. It is true that some scholars regard the Japanese language as a language isolate. The Japanese Wikipedia contains both theories that the Japanese is isolated and that the Japanese belongs to the Japonic family. Your edit does not make any sense to me.--Je suis tres fatigue (talk) 09:11, 19 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Japanese is a small family. Not even the Japanese see it as a single language anymore. There is no "controversy" over Luchuan being a separate language. Our sources treat it as a small family. All our articles treat it as a small family. It would be odd to make an exception here. In fact, we even mention Japanese in the intro as an example of a small family which once upon a time was considered an isolate. kwami (talk) 09:36, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Some more Na'vi to parse
Hi, I thought I'd let you know as well - http://masempul.org/upxare-niinglisi/ it's a new message from Paul Frommer that just came out a few minutes ago. Mithridates (talk) 20:41, 20 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I'm going over it. kwami (talk) 21:43, 20 January 2010 (UTC)


 * No problem. And guess what else turned up after - http://forum.learnnavi.org/intermediate/language-update-a-closer-look-at-dr-frommers-letter/ the entire letter already pre-parsed by Frommer himself. Mithridates (talk) 02:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Wadi el-Hol Translation
It's perfectly linear and perfectly abjadic.

The substance is content-related both to the symbol depicted above the vertical inscription, and with the other 50+ inscriptions in Egyptian on that rock, some of which refer to Hathor-worship and one of which refers (in Eg.) to the Maiden of Byblos.

This appears to be linking Athtar (Ishtar) with Hathor as Ba'alat was in Serabit al-Khadem. However, this language is Ugaritic not Canaanite and is influenced semantically by Akkadian.

The paper I'm working on clarifies why there are apparent paleographic shifts particularly with the affrications that occurred from Northwest Semitic to Canaanite and later Phoenician. The other support (like D_ and Z. come from Ugaritic voicing peculiarities, in addition to the already clear paleographic similarities between (particularly) Thamudic D_ and Wadi D_)

What do you think? Michael Sheflin (talk) 08:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Looks quite convincing. But we still need to follow sources. kwami (talk) 00:32, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Once my working paper is published, you will be. 217.53.182.189 (talk) 08:37, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Looking forward to it! kwami (talk) 10:26, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Mammal capitalisation
I have responded to both your comments at WT:MAMMAL and those at WT:RODENT. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 23:54, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I've responded again: in this case, you follow sources. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 00:25, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Of course we follow sources. And the sources contradict each other. So we either set up hundreds of walled gardens according to our favorite sources, or we apply some common sense. kwami (talk) 00:31, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, the point is that with nonstandard names nobody cares and it is up to you. Your walled garden argument is tiring, I must say. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 19:19, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


 * You're saying I can just change whatever I like? Okay, I was thinking we wanted some kind of consensus. kwami (talk) 20:09, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Rollback
This edit was not an acceptable use of the rollback tool (see Rollback feature). Please be more careful with its use in the future. Thanks, Ucucha 00:35, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Awngi language
I noticed your edit on Awngi. It is true that Hetzron in 1969 still had evidence for the phoneme, but now it appears that the sound has left the system. Joswig (2006) in footnote 2 writes: "They (Hetzron and Palmer; LL) both mentioned a seventh vowel, but this has now entirely merged phonetically with . There is still a phone , but this is a conditioned variant of , appearing after uvular consonants." There is no evidence nowadays that there is such a sound as a variant of in Awngi. Maybe based on that you want to reconsider your edit. Landroving Linguist (talk) 09:47, 27 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Good to know. kwami (talk) 10:24, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

February 2010
Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, we must insist that you assume good faith while interacting with other editors, which you did not on Melbourne. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. (Undid revision 341171946 by Bidgee (talk) - *sigh* is not assuming good faith. You have been warned twice but two other Admin's about using the rollback feature in content disputes, count yourself lucky that I've not reported this to AN/I or any other Admin's have seen your misuse. Bidgee (talk) 01:25, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Perhaps you should review the case so you know what you're talking about before you start making accusations. You said not to use rollback, so I used undo. That is not assuming bad faith on your part, merely a bit of exasperation that you would revert me for reverting tendentious edits by an abusive editor who threatens to use sockpuppetry to get around consensus.


 * No, I take that back. I will use rollback in such situations. That is exactly what the rollback button is for: vandals, sockpuppets, abuse, etc. kwami (talk) 01:38, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I suggest you read the two User talk:Kwamikagami sections in your talkpage! This is a content dispute not vandalism. Rollback should only be used for vandalism, banned editors (who make edit when they shouldn't), legal threats but not content disputes. If they threaten to sockpuppet it still no grounds to use rollback but if they do sock then take it to WP:SPI. Bidgee (talk) 01:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I did not contest the other two objections to my using rollback, because they were justified: in those cases I was merely being lazy. This case, however, was IMO appropriate. I don't feel a purposefully abusive editor deserves to be handled with kid gloves so we don't hurt his feelings. He's obviously beyond that. He's also beyond assuming good faith, if your comment to that effect was concerning him. kwami (talk) 01:52, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The failing to assume good faith was the *sigh* remark you used in the edit summary of the undo and not the undo itself. Also I did not use the revert or rollback on you, I used the undo and expanded why I did so in the summary.


 * That wasn't an assumption of bad faith. I have no reason to think that of you. Also, I did not use rollback on you either. kwami (talk) 01:58, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * It's a content dispute, whether his assuming good faith or not is a whole different matter. Bidgee (talk) 01:57, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * It's an abusive editor who is edit warring against long-established consensus. I used undo and explained my actions, both in the edit summary and on his talk page, a couple times, only to be met with abuse. So yes, I used rollback, and in the future I will continue to do so. kwami (talk) 02:01, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Delayed reply Having looked at the editor in question I do see what you're saying and I sincerely apologise over my comments towards you. Bidgee (talk) 12:44, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, thanks. I was confused why s.o. like that was due any courtesy! kwami (talk) 12:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Random
You know, I don't recall ever bumping into you on the site before getting into the Na'vi business, yet it appears we joined the site one day apart back in 2004. Funny coincidences like that always make me chuckle. Oh well, just a random observation. Have a good day! — Huntster (t @ c) 11:36, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Even funnier, we both got the same IQ result on an online test! (Well, maybe mine was 156. I don't remember: Not that smart.) kwami (talk) 11:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Apparently we also both have failing memories? :P — Huntster (t @ c) 12:29, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

By the way, thank you for being a voice of common sense over at Talk:Na'vi language. I can barely look at that hatnote discussion without my blood boiling at the bureaucratic nonsense. I begin to understand why some critics suggest that wiki is not long for this world. — Huntster (t @ c) 23:41, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Tuvalu
I converted the respelling pronunciations directly from the IPA and I've gotten fairly good at it, so if I was wrong then it's probable the IPA is wrong. Could you please explain how the pronunciations were wrong? --<b style="color:#3773A5;">Cyber</b> cobra (talk) 11:20, 8 February 2010 (UTC)


 * You transcribed, which isn't a possible English pronunciation, rather than . Sorry, I didn't have time to fix it last night. kwami (talk) 22:18, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * According to the respelling chart, both "uː" and "ʊ" transcribe to "oo" (the only difference being whether it's boldface or not). --<b style="color:#3773A5;">Cyber</b> cobra (talk) 19:09, 10 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes. You didn't make it boldface, and also put the stress on the wrong syllable. kwami (talk) 00:47, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Wednesday pronunciation
I just undid an edit you made to the Wednesday article on 6 June 2009. In that edit, you added a third syllable to the pronunciation of the word when the first "d" is pronounced: you changed /wɛdnzdeɪ/ to /wɛdənzdeɪ/ and /wɛdnzdi/ to /wɛdənzdi/. In my over 60 years speaking and hearing the English language, I don't believe I have ever heard anyone in any part of the world pronounce Wednesday with three distinct syllables, which your transcriptions (with the "ə" between the first "d" and the "n") give it. I also never have seen such a pronunciation documented in any dictionary.

You seem to have much experience with phonetics, but I believe you are mistaken in this instance. If you can document the three-syllable pronunciation, please do so. But in that case you should add those unusual pronunciations instead of replacing the very well-attested two-syllable /wɛdnzdeɪ/ and /wɛdnzdi/ with them, as you did in June.

If I am mistaken in attributing that edit to you, or if some intervening edit I overlooked is responsible, please forgive me and let me know of my error here, with a talkback note to my talk page. Nevertheless, I stand by the change I made to the Wednesday article.

Thanks.--Jim10701 (talk) 17:40, 10 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I may have done it, I don't recall. I have never heard a trisyllabic pronunciation either. But would be trisyllabic, because AFAIK /dn/ cannot end a syllable in English; adding the schwa only makes that explicit. Our convention is to write all syllabic consonants (like the /n/ here, or the way some say hidden) with a schwa, with the expectation that whether the schwa is actually realized will normally be individual or dialectical variation.


 * That's weird, the OED only gives the disyllabic pronunciation, without the /d/. But Websters says that British English also has a trisyllabic pronunciation with the /d/. They specifically transcribe the schwa.


 * Listening to the Brit.Eng. sample they have at Wiktionary, it's . Two syllables w the /d/, as syll. 1 rhymes w bends.


 * If you maintain that the /wednz/ pronunciation has two syllables, could you upload a sound file? kwami (talk) 00:55, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Yulia Tymoshenko
As you seem to be involved in WP:RESPELL, would you mind translating Yulia Tymoshenko's IPA into it? Is there a procedure to request such respellings? By the way, I googled without success. It's on forvo but the audio file is muffled. Revelian (talk) 19:52, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * A request on the talk page of that key would work. Or here. But first you need her name in English. Respelling won't work for Ukrainian. kwami (talk) 01:09, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

NPOV tag requires a dispute
Per your tag on Moses as symbol in American history, the tag states "Please see the discussion on the talk page." Normally, the tag is added after there has been some statement on the article's talk page so that others will know the issues and can comment. I'll remove the tag pending your written dispute, after which time you can put it back. BTW, all of your comments on the TC talk page were your own OR. If you're going to dispute any quotes or writings by cited authors, especially scholarly ones, you'll need to back up your opinions with other than personal comments. --Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 08:45, 13 February 2010 (UTC)


 * No, start the discussion if you like, but removing warning tags is close to vandalism. It's certainly inappropriate for the writer of the article.


 * My comments we my reasons for concern. Of course they're going to be own opinion. That's how things work. kwami (talk) 08:49, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Inappropriate block
You need to read Block. You don't block someone for 3RR when they're edit warring with you. You also don't block them for comments they've made when those comments were directed at you. Lack of objectivity, you see. You should also avoid insinuating a user is a repeat offender because you've failed to thoroughly read their block log, particularly if you're going to claim personal attacks and harassment, both of which make you look like a hypocrite. Lara 21:01, 13 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I would have asked s.o. else to block for 3RR w/o bothering with discussion, if that's all it was, because of COI, but then there was "fuck off fucktards", which was presumably directed at the other editor, as that's who he was reverting. (I had just added the New York pronunciation of New York, but he hadn't objected to that.) I don't think I'm a hypocrite for that.


 * My apologies if the earlier block was not his fault. It did seem rather odd that s.o. would start a revert war against the MOS and w/o discussion just after coming off a block. kwami (talk) 21:14, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Wrangham paper
Hola, note and note. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 19:29, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protection of IPA for English
Hi there. I notice you semi-protected indefinitely IPA for English. I would like to ask you to reconsider, or anyway to give the article another try, since I don't think the disruption (which as you say was anyway generally in good faith) was so frequent or annoying to warrant an indefinite protection. By the way, unless I'm missing something, this is not a template.

Also, I would like to link the IPA symbols to the respective phoneme articles like I have done for IPA for French and IPA for Mandarin. I think doing this is quite useful, because those articles normally contain a sound clip to illustrate pronunciation. I'd be interested to know what you think about the idea. Thank you. 122.25.253.166 (talk) 09:24, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Ten thousand articles link to it, so I really don't think leaving it unprotected is a good idea. Links to sound files would be harmful, because you'd be choosing a specific dialect as the Wikipedia standard for English; no matter which sound files you chose, you'd exclude large numbers of people. (French and Mandarin are not a problem, because we transcribe Parisian French and Beijing Mandarin. But we don't specify English words and RP, GA, Oz, etc.; when we do, we link them to the generic IPA template, not the English one.) Remember, this is a (dia)phonemic system, not a phonetic one, so there aren't actually specific sounds associated with the IPA letters. kwami (talk) 09:54, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks.
 * Protection: if you don't mind I'm going to ask a second opinion at WP:RUP.
 * IPA: From the IPA article, "The general principle of the IPA is to provide one symbol for each distinctive sound". It is therefore a language-independent, one-to-one map from symbols to sounds. The various English variations map one word to many regionalised sequences of IPA symbols. See this entry in the Cambridge dictionary for example, showing /pɒd/ for UK and /pɑːd/ for US. So /ɒ/ still maps to the same sound for both dialects, and likewise /ɑ/, only they are used in different.
 * In this respect, I think much of the contents of that article, especially the "Understanding the key" section, are wrong and confusing. This should probably be brought up in the talk section of the article. 122.25.253.166 (talk) 10:23, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Sure, go ahead. That's what the talk page is for!
 * Not quite. "One symbol, one sound" means it is language dependent. There are uncountably many sounds in human languages; it would be impossible to create a separate symbol for each. Rather, the idea is that each language should be able to distinguish its own phonemes with one symbol for each—unless, of course, no-one speaking that language sits on the board of the IPA, in which case it's not important enough to bother with. (There are hundreds of languages for which the IPA attempt at being phonemic is inadequate.)
 * Each symbol does have a defined sound, or range of sounds, but this approach to the IPA is incompatible with the first. For example, pod is in the UK but  in the US. So if you had a sound file for pod, would you use it to illustrate  or ? And would that mean that speakers of the other dialect don't know how to properly speak English?
 * We distinguish these two uses of the IPA with [brackets] for phonetics and /slashes/ for phonemics. You have a phonetic approach. It won't work for a phonemic transcription. kwami (talk) 10:38, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia pronunciation
Don't know what you're referring to exactly. The pronunciation on Wikipedia is correct as far as I can tell. --<b style="color:#3773A5;">Cyber</b> cobra (talk) 10:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, sorry, it was at WP:About, and did not agree with the article. kwami (talk) 21:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Boa Sr.
Kwami, hope all is well with you and yours. When you get a couple of minutes, the page Boa Sr needs to be moved to Boa Sr.. There is definitely a period at the end of Sr in her name according to the linguist working on her language. Thanks. (Taivo (talk) 14:44, 23 February 2010 (UTC))


 * I thought we had naming conventions for consistency on such things, but can't locate them. That's really just a punctuation issue, isn't it? I take it that her name was "Boa", and the Sr. was to dab from another Boa. I'll get back to you. kwami (talk) 21:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


 * In the Voices of the Andamans website she's always called "Boa Sr." Yes, the "Sr." distinguished her from "Boa Jr."  I don't know who got the idea that there was no period, but this is a relic of that misconception.  (Taivo (talk) 00:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC))


 * But again, that's punctuation, not her name. A person may be titled "Dr." in one ref and "Dr" in another; that's not part of the name. I'm just waiting to see if we have any attempt at consistency to follow. kwami (talk) 00:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * On the Vanishing Voices of the Andamans website (the only actual source for information), she's always called "Boa Sr."--here, here, and here. Periods all the way round.  (Taivo (talk) 00:37, 24 February 2010 (UTC))


 * No answer yet. I'll go ahead and move. kwami (talk) 08:32, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. (Taivo (talk) 08:52, 2 March 2010 (UTC))

Linking R
Hi Kwami - am I to understand that word-final /r/ is included in UK placenames because (among other reasons) RP possesses linking R? I had thought, at first, that it was only because WP:IPAEN is pan-dialectal (which I agree with). Do we have any sources that transcribe word-final /r/ specifically for RP? Lfh (talk) 09:18, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * We do include it because the key is diaphonemic. But it's also the case that RP has linking /r/, so either way it would be incorrect to leave it out, and I find it odd that people would complain about American influence because of feature of RP. The British Library discusses linking /r/ here. They also cover intrusive [r], but don't attribute it to RP. kwami (talk) 09:27, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not bothered by it on WP, I just can't remember seeing it in British-oriented dictionaries. Lfh (talk) 10:44, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I think it is generally left out. It is in the OED, for example. But they aren't really phonemic transcriptions. kwami (talk) 10:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Memories are short apparently, but not  mine ;) We've discussed this ad nauseam two months ago. and in  spite of a rough consensus, some Wikepedians refused to  backdown from imposing their rhotic American pronunciation  on  all  the British  counties, the British culture, and the British  editors of the encyclopedia. I'm not  going  to  start an edit war over Worcestershire, Herefordshire, and Warwickshire,  because there is little to  be gained by arguing with  admins with  an agenda for an article they  have written, and  people who  have turned the encyclopedia into  a manual of use for the IPA,  and interpreted their own set  set of rules for its use to  be imposed across the board, emphatically, and at  times even bordering  on WP:CIVIL to  get  their message across. .--Kudpung (talk) 11:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually we didn't discuss linking R at all, we discussed whether placenames should be transcribed in local or generic English, which is a different question. Kwami has asked you about linking R, but you haven't answered yet. Lfh (talk) 11:29, 24 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Golly, memories really are short. I  won't  bother to  C&P the instances here but  the linking r was definitely  discussed, and ironically  not  by  me. I'll leave you  guys to  discover... --Kudpung (talk) 08:59, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Baluns
Hi Kwamikagami. You recently changed the balun IPA from /ˈbæl.ʌn/ to /ˈbælən/. Why the change? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't understand it. If it helps the discussion, balun is a contraction of 'balanced-unbalanced'. 85.218.91.20 (talk) 08:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I may well be wrong, but Random House has /ˈbælən/. I've been correcting articles where the IPA mistakenly has /ʌ/ for /ə/. /ʌ/ is found at the end of "blunderbuss", /ə/ at the end of "omnibus", at least as the OED transcribes them. /ʌ/ is what some dictionaries would transcribe as having a secondary accent. A rather subtle distinction, so it's easy to get wrong. But since "balun" is a blend, it might well retain the full vowel /ʌ/ rather than a reduced schwa /ə/. Do you know from your own experience? kwami (talk) 08:54, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmm, not sure why I appeared as an IP there, but I'm the original questioner :-) I'm more confused than when I started now! I can't really tell the difference between the final 'u' on omnibus or blunderbuss - maybe in blunderbuss the 'u' is slightly longer? The OED gives a third variation, /ˈbalʌn/, but I suspect they use 'a' where wikipedia uses 'æ'. After reading about reduced vowels, I think the original version is the correct one, but I'm a long way from certain. Balun is a made-up word, and most people labour it slightly when they say it (some even write bal-un). I've met every variation from /'beɪln/ to /'bæluːn/ (both wrong!), so whichever variant we use is helpful. GyroMagician (talk) 20:22, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Kede
Re: What is your basis for including Kede in the central group? I could offer you a cite for this - as well as a more authoritative one to correct it - but I'd like to hear your reasons. Where are you getting this material?24.22.141.61 (talk) 09:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I didn't include it there.
 * If you have good refs, I'd suggest providing them. Are you the anon who complained that it was useless to do anything, without even trying? kwami (talk) 09:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Ghazal
Kwamikagami, your edit here to ghazal appears to invert the meaning of the statement about mispronunciation. Your edit summary was "fix IPA per MOS", but all you seem to have done is change "often mispronounced" to "pronounced", and reverse the order of instances. Can you please clarify? Thanks. --Yumegusa (talk) 10:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I put the more recent pronunciation first. Why would you say either is mispronounced?
 * The edit summary, BTW, was for AWB, and not customized for each article. When I find additional errors to what I'm looking for, I correct them too. kwami (talk) 10:25, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I didn't say either was mispronounced. I said you changed a statement to read the opposite of what it had said without any explanation, and your edit summary was entirely misleading. On reflection I believe your edit is likely correct, but please remember what the edit summary is for. --Yumegusa (talk) 12:34, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, you're right. I should be more careful. But what's happened in the past is that I'd changed the edit summary for a specific article, then forget to revert it, and the next hundred articles get that same (inappropriate) edit summary, which is even more of a problem. kwami (talk) 22:17, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The way it is supposedly pronounced in IPA ([ˈɣazal]) implies Aghzal... with an initial alif. However, as it is spelled in Arabic, it should be transliterated [ɣazal] or [ɣazel] (in that [ɣazal] sort of implies ghazaal (gazelle)). Michael Sheflin (talk) 19:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Borean languages
An editor is questioning notability as well as altering presentation in ways I feel are unhelpful. Would appreciate your input at Talk:Borean languages. --JWB (talk) 20:29, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Copernicium
[http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50049688? That indeed was OED]. And what do you mean about dialects? --<b style="color:#3773A5;">Cyber</b> cobra (talk) 02:55, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't have access to that link. It doesn't agree with my copy of the OED. Could you copy it?
 * We don't pick a particular dialect, in this case RP, to be the pronunciation of a word, unless we're specifically considering local pronunciations. kwami (talk) 04:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * "Copernican, a. and n." SECOND EDITION 1989
 * "(kəʊ'pɜːnɪkən) [f. Copernicus, Latinized form of Koppernik, name of a celebrated astronomer, a native of Thorn in Prussian Poland (1473-1543) + -AN.]"--<b style="color:#3773A5;">Cyber</b> cobra (talk) 04:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, mine has that as well. I was wondering were you got the from, but  I understand. Look up "Americium" as well:  in the 2nd ed. I believe the convention for the 3rd ed. is to have < i > for that final <ɪ>.
 * We use <oʊ> for <əʊ>. /ɜː/ does not occur in reduced syllables, and in any case we'd need an /r/ in there, so it would be /ər/, as in Americium. So the end result is (or ) if we base it on the OED. kwami (talk) 08:32, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

IPA 'discussion'
You will, I'm sure, have noted already that castigating me as 'trolling' (whatever that silly term means) on wikipedia talk: IPA for English is rather puerile and, moreover, missing the point. This IPA discussion has rambled, deviated and transmogrified too much for too long. It is, I'm sure, an easier thing to shout 'troll' than actually engage in a sensible discussion of how to wrap this issue up but I should hope (however vainly) that you would be able to refrain from name calling and engage seriously with the matter in hand. Fortnum (talk) 21:53, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * It has rambled because Kudpung has refused to engage in honest debate. Or if he is being honest, he has serious deficiencies in his understanding of linguistics, and perhaps he is refusing to debate the issues because he doesn't really understand them. (There are no attractive explanations that I can see for his rambling.) Your comments appeared to be trolling; at best, they were unhelpful. If you wish to have serious debate, then perhaps you should start by engaging in serious debate. kwami (talk) 23:40, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * A debtate is fine; a rambling monologue is, at best, tedious. If you think it was trolling, then that's fine: I'm not awfully bothered by that.  But maybe we might get some sort of resolution to this Great IPA Debate now.  I think I'll leave it at that. Fortnum (talk) 00:00, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * That would be nice, and if you were being helpful, my apologies. I've asked Kudpung several times to answer a few basic questions (such as his conception of linking ar) designed to elucidate what his objections actually are. Meanwhile our IPA conventions are a long-standing consensus of editors of several nationalities, so I'm not terribly concerned if one editor who appears (or pretends?) not to understand them doesn't like them. kwami (talk) 00:07, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Why do  you  continue to  make, personal  attacks and invent the reasons for them? I've told you before on  many  occasions that  I  am  standing on  a soapbox for at  least  six or seven clear opponents of the way  you  micromanage you  personal world of pronunciation  on  the Wikipeda. The only  thing we know about  you  is that  you are American, have never been to  the UK, but  profess to  be Wikipedia's leading  authority  on  pronunciation, especially British English  RP. We don't understand why  it  so  important to you  to maintain that  position by  occasionally possibly  bordering on misuse of the trust  and responsibility vested in you  as an admin. The deletion  of Fortnum's perfectly  valid comments, or your tacit support  for the deletion,  was clearly  out of order and a misue of sysop  responsibility, as was your calling  him a troll; especially as it  was his very  message  that  precipitated my return to that wreck of a discussion which I had already  left  several  weeks ago in  disgust. Sysops don't  tolerate disruptive editing,  especially  when those edits are the very  point  of an issue under current  discussion, so  what  gives you  the right  as an admin to do  the same with  impunity. Acerbic expression, and collective  bullying of  people out of  discussions, are in  my  opinion, some of the reasons for some of the points in the Policy  statement  HERE. I have already  said that I  don't  run to Aunty  ANI  or ARBCOM on  every  little thing (in  fact I never have), but  please tread carefully if you  value your admin tools, because somebody else might. Now as Fortnum suggests, let's try to get some sort of resolution to this Great IPA Debate now.  I think I'll also leave it at that and let  you and your fellow IPA experts address the different  points that  have been exposed, and sort  out the muddle. --Kudpung (talk) 06:53, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The problem is that you haven't addressed the issues with enough clarity that anyone else can follow. If there's a muddle, you would appear to be the prime source of it. After your last posting, I listed six or seven possible interpretations of what you were trying to say, and asked you to clarify. I've been asking similar questions for months. So far you've been remarkably resistant to doing that, for reasons I utterly fail to understand. I have no problem considering your POV if I understand what it is, but so far you've repeatedly refused to explain yourself, instead just repeating yourself with the same, what to me is unintelligible, prose. If after dozens of pages, other editors are still scratching their heads as to what you're talking about, perhaps you need to step back and try a different approach. Try "I object to X because it's Y", and give evidence for your claim that it is Y. As for your implied threats against me if I fail to comprehend your ramblings and address them in a manner you see fit, well, lets just say that other editors don't seem to find you any more comprehensible than I do. kwami (talk) 07:03, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * If you would just  bother to  read the posts I  made above properly, and relate to  your attitude, and to  your personal  attacks on my professionalism where you admit to  none, and if you  were to read the whole discussion  through  again (if you  can spare the 3 hours away  from your other editing), you  will see that  I have tried very  hard indeed to fortify  the clearly  defined complaints of at least  half a dozen editors whose suggestions for improvement I  wholeheartedly, as a Brit and a linguist, support, and who  a re definitely  not  scratching  their heads.  The details you  repeatedly  keep asking  me for are there, posted by  others. You  will also come across a couple of instances where you  have clearly  contradicted your own assertions on  rhoticity, General American, British RP, and the Wikipedia's (read: your) policy  for implementing the IPA on Wik pages. I have pointed these instances out to  you, sometimes in  C&P italics, and you  have refused to address them -  was that  a tacit admission of guilt? Kwami, I  have not  threatened you  anywhere at  all, or implied any  threats, in  fact  I  have often lauded your knowledge of the IPA. However,  I have also politely suggested that you, as a sysop, might  have some additional  duties to fulfill, and that you take it  easy with your civility, disruptive editing, and tacit  acceptance of others' violations of Wikipedia policy; well, let's just  say that a lot  of people don't like admins who  misbehave, and there might  be others who  could be quicker to take formal  issue with  your editing  and comments,  and I  am  not  in  breach  of any  Wiki policy  in  pointing this out to  you.  Neither you  or I  want  that,  in fact  if your concern for the Wikipedia were as genuine as I  would like to  believe, and believe me I'm  still  very  much  trying  to  AGF, you  would be looking even beyond constantly  ranting, and  towards some teamwork of the kind that I enjoy on  other subjects  in  this encyclopedia.   I  have probably  sounded patronising, and I  crave your indulgence, so now please leave me alone and don't  bother me again with  anything that  would expect  a reply.--Kudpung (talk) 08:53, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Truth be told, after I found you unwilling to directly answer anything, or to directly state anything, I began to skim over what you've written, so I wouldn't be surprised if there are things of value in there that I've missed. However, simply repeating that your points are addressed elsewhere is not helpful to continuing a discussion.
 * Leave you alone? You're the one who's repeatedly addressing me. Am I to take it that you are no longer interested in this conversation? If so, why are you documenting everything I say on this topic with the apparent goal of doing just that? If you want a direct discussion, great; but I am just as tired of our unending arguing at cross purposes as you appear to be. kwami (talk) 09:01, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry  to  deflate your pride, but  I am not  documenting everythjing  you  say, I am however collating  everything  that  has been said by  everyone, on every  IPA discussion so that I have a quick computerised reference to  be able to  objectively  engage in  a proper debate or poll, if it  ever comes to that.
 * Yes, I had guessed that  you  only  skim postings and discussions, that's why  you  never realised that  you  have blatantly  contradicted yourself on  a couple of occasions and won't  respond to  it,  but  accuse others of not 'bothering', and won't  respond to my  suggestions that you  might not  be acting  in the GF expected from  a sysop. It's not  really  very  cool, and not  really  a very  mature approach for wanting to  engage in  a less heated, more intelligent  discussion. And that's why I  have lost  interest  in anything you  say, in spite of your most  interesting and profound knowledge of the IPA, and don't  want  to  discuss the issue with  you  again -  ever.--Kudpung (talk) 09:35, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * And yet you're still here. kwami (talk) 09:48, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

"Cheshire" pronounced with /r/ in RP
I don't understand this edit. Are you saying that RP is not in fact completely non-rhotic? What is the supposed RP pronounciation of "Cheshire"? My native accent is pretty close to RP, and I've never heard anything but [ˈtʃʰɛʃə] or similar. What is your source for saying otherwise? CheersGrover cleveland (talk) 19:35, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * If you speak RP, then you'll hear the /r/ if you say "Cheshire is my home". But you won't hear an /r/ if you say "Chelsea is my home". So "Cheshire" has a final /r/, while "Chelsea" does not. What people mean by "non-rhotic" is not that there are no ars, but that they drop out before consonants. That is, there really is no /r/ in "York", as it never shows up at all. Of course, some people will drop the /r/ regardless, or add one even after "Chelsea", but that's not considered RP. Or at least it didn't used to be, and according the British Library website, that's still the case. kwami (talk) 21:13, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * That's not how RP or other non-rhotic accents are usually analysed. The phenomena of linking R and intrusive R are standardly described as a sandhi rule whereby /r/ can optionally be inserted to avoid hiatus between any word (or, ocassionally, morpheme) ending in a nonhigh vowel and a following word (or morpheme) beginning with a vowel.  For example, both RP "cheater" and RP "cheetah" are phonetically /ˈtʃiːtə/.  Both may acquire a /r/ in phrases such as "cheater and liar", "cheetah(r) and lion".  The /r/ in both cases is purely a sandhi phenomenon.  This is how texts such as Wells, Accents of English, analyse things (see this Google Books link).  If any speakers could be found who consistently use linking R but not intrusive R in unstudied speech then this analysis would not work.  But no one has found such a speaker (at least in RP,  -- there are questions about some southern US accents that may be underlyingly rhotic).  As Wells says, "linking /r/ and intrusive /r/ are distinct only historically and orthographically". Grover cleveland (talk) 06:52, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, well in that case I agree with you. That wasn't the description I had seen. As I'd understood it, linking ar was RP, but intrusive ar was not. That is, in RP cheater but not cheetah should have an /r/. I've spent very little time in England, not enough to know any of this myself, so thank you for the link. I was under the impression that people really did speak the way they said one should. Interestingly, Wells does maintain a phonemic distinction after, so final /r/ does partially apply in his idiolect of RP. Given the loss of linking /r/ to intrusive /r/ after some vowels in modern RP, we'd have to say that our transcription is very conservative RP, assuming we were to say it's RP at all, which really isn't what we've been doing. Our transcription is supposed to be generic English (basically a rhotic version of RP but maintaining the horse-hoarse distinction). The reason for that particular comment (which I've deleted now that you've shown me I'm wrong) was an editor who argued that York has an /r/ but -shire does not, something that I found puzzling, but which he refused to explain further despite coming back over and over complaining about pushing American pronunciations on England. kwami (talk) 07:19, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Please refrain from  twisting things out of context  to  suit  yourself, I've asked you  excruciatingly  politely  often enough. --Kudpung (talk) 15:46, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I thought your promise to stay away would be worthless. As usual, no evidence for your fantasies. And no, you have not been polite. Your wording may have been, but behind that veneer you've been quite rude. kwami (talk) 21:02, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Wells does maintain a phonemic distinction after /ɔː/, so final /r/. Are you referring to the horse/hoarse split?  I think Wells says something like "there are no RP-speakers below retirement age with this distinction" -- this in the early 1980s.  And even for those RP-speakers who have/had the distinction, it was phonemicized by Wells and others as /hɔːs/ vs. /hɔəs/.  No /r/s anywhere in sight. Grover cleveland (talk) 22:26, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No, I meant at the ends of words. He says he has linking ar but not intrusive ar after /ɔː/. Yes, since he is non-rhotic, he wouldn't have an /r/ in horse-hoarse. We can maintain that distinction easily enough, however, since it's maintained in the OED an other dictionaries. kwami (talk) 22:35, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * [Wells] has linking ar but not intrusive ar after /ɔː/ Do you have a reference for that claim?  I'd be very interested to see it.  Cheers.  Grover cleveland (talk) 00:54, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The bottom paragraph of p 225 of the ref you linked to above. He speculates either that he maintains a horse-hoarse distinction that is never realized apart from linking /r/ (which I find rather unlikely), or that certain /ɔː/-final words are lexically marked as exceptions to the /r/ insertion rule, which would of course maintain a linking distinction after /ɔː/. He also suggests this is due to the relatively recent merger of hoarse-horse, which I expect is the case. kwami (talk) 01:12, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah -- thanks! I strongly suspect that Wells et al. would have linking R where NORTH occurs  word-finally (e.g. "oR else").  This means that, as he suggests, the THOUGHT set is especially marked for non-R-insertion, and the merger of THOUGHT with NORTH/FORCE is not complete in all environments.  Grover cleveland (talk) 19:48, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

IPA-fr
Hi Kwamikagami, you've been the largest contributor to the French IPA Template, I was wondering if I could get your input concerning the use of [Square Brackets] vs. /Slashes/. The problem likely extends to a number of other of those IPA templates, but for now please refer to the IPA-fr talk page, thanks. — <font color="#0065C4">Io <font color="#C40000">Katai <font color="#0065C4">ᵀᵃˡᵏ  23:02, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Sure, answered there. kwami (talk) 23:16, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit warring and then blocking the other editor warrior
Can you explain why you engaged in an edit war and then blocked the other party who was also edit warring? ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:56, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I haven't blocked anyone recently. Can you tell me what you're talking about? kwami (talk) 05:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're right. I was looking at older diffs thinking they were recent. My mistake. It's a very curious block as far as I can tell, but perhaps it's best to let sleeping dogs lie. Or maybe a metaphor with snakes whould be better? Anyway, I'm too lazy to see what's gone on since, so hopefully it all worked out for the best. ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I did block s.o. I was in conflict with when he attacked another editor, so maybe it was that. Could be seen as a COI, but his behavior was bad enough that I didn't much care. kwami (talk) 08:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Phonemic transcription

 * I didn't realize there was some universal agreement to write /r/ to mean "English r." Is this Wikipedia-specific only, seeing as if we are truly to use an international phonetic alphabet, then I assume that the symbol "r" should only represent one sound, regardless of language? Wolfdog (talk) 00:29, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No, this is quite common, perhaps more common in transcribing English than /ɹ/ is. When used phonemically, letters don't mean any particular thing, and have to be defined. However, even in broad phonetic transcription, [r] may be used for English ar. You see similar things with other languages, such as /c/ for [tʃ] etc. in Indic languages. The IPA letters are only consistent in a narrow phonetic transcription with lots of diacritics; generally people drop the diacritics if they aren't necessary and often substitute letters found on an ASCII keyboard. It's a conflict between precision and convenience. In our case, the fewer non-roman letters the better for IPA newbies, so we also have /oʊ/ rather than /əʊ/. kwami (talk) 00:34, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh ok, well it's just too bad IPA isn't universally interlingual after all. I thought that was the point of it, regardless of convenience. It just seems a little contrary to the goal of creating a standardized system of sounds-to-symbols, but thanks for discussing this with me, anyhow. Good to know. Wolfdog (talk) 15:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * IPA is "universally interlingual" when used phonetically. When used phonemically, _any_ possible system must by definition use symbols that are defined with specific reference to the language in question. Grover cleveland (talk) 18:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, when used phonetically, "universally interlingual" details are only dropped out when they're irrelevant to the point at hand, which we call a "broad" transcription. For example, English /r/ may be, depending on dialect and position in the word, but since this is generally beside the point, a writer will often pick just one of those without being more specific to stand for "English". And once you're considering it as a phoneme, then there are several pronunciations which must be conflated, in my dialect . It wouldn't make much sense to transcribe the phoneme as , so we just pick a convenient symbol. Could be /♣/ if we wanted. But the IPA has the potential of being very precise, a "narrow" transcription, if that's what's needed. So in the intro to a language you might get very precise transcriptions with lots of diacritics, but once they've been introduced, the rest of the text will use a simplified version of them. Not just easier to typeset, but more importantly, easier to read. kwami (talk) 21:45, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, this makes more sense to me. I understand that regional dialect must be another obstruction overlooked in favor of more general symbols for a language that any speaker of the language could understand, adapting it themsleves more precisely to their own dialect. Wolfdog (talk) 03:05, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

ipa 4 Courir de Mardi Gras
Think you could adjust the IPA for this page? Right now it has the pronunciation for Mardi Gras, which I just copy and pasted over from that article when I was writing this article a few weeks ago. I was unsure how to do the IPA for the whole phrase tho, so I left a note on the talk page, but no one has done it yet. I noticed you seem to be involved with this, so thought I'd ask. The correct pronunciation is french, so the r's in Courir are practically silent, if that helps. Thanks, Heironymous Rowe (talk) 23:46, 3 March 2010 (UTC)


 * What we have is English, so I'll switch it over. kwami (talk) 00:25, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks a bunch! Heironymous Rowe (talk) 00:37, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Defaultsort
Hi, I noticed this edit and wanted to point out that there doesn't appear to be clear consensus that inclusion of a DEFAULTSORT on every article is necessary or desired. Specifically in the case of taxa, no other article on Wikipedia is going to categorize near Nepenthes pitopangii except other Nepenthes species with the same second word capitalization (lowercase). The DEFAULTSORT, when applied sporadically, also messes up categories that are already correct without any DEFAULTSORTs. Cheers, Rkitko (talk) 02:21, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I'll try to avoid that, but you might want to take it up with AWB. I'm not doing any of this myself. kwami (talk) 02:23, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No worries. I'll take it up with AWB one of these days, but when using AWB I always uncheck the general fixes. Cheers, Rkitko (talk) 02:32, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know how to uncheck the general fixes, since the check box is below the bottom of the screen (another bug), and I don't see it in the menus. kwami (talk) 04:18, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Wadi el-Hol revisited (not really though)
I don't know if you saw my post on the Middle Bronze age... etc. discussion page. I am not trying to be combative, but (I am discovering alongside writing this paper), it is generally assumed by scholars that these are simply an earlier iteration of the Proto-Sinaitic script and not a divergent script. The latter hypothesis would (I am guessing) weaken 'their' case that the alphabet followed a simple singular progression. This hurts the organization of the article, but (particularly as my own assessment is the opposite) I have no real suggestions for how to rectify this problem without eviscerating the article. As it stands now, it (the article) is organized by location and time: i.e. the article is itself organized by category-time intersection (alphabet-middle bronze age). However, the internal structure is place-based; i.e. Sinai vs. Thebes. The problem is, and I have spoken personally with Dr. Darnell on this subject, that they refuse to recognize the possibility that the language or script are in fact part of any divergent trend. Therefore (as far as I have been able to find - and my research has been quite extensive), nobody except me argues that they are not Proto-Sinaitic. Hence... I am this page's organization's greatest ally, but the organization itself is a form of OR. Thoughts? Michael Sheflin (talk) 10:19, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * We know so little of these scripts that I don't know how we could say anything definitive. We haven't decoded them; we don't really know that they're alphabetic. If no published material advocates the position that they may be distinct, then we cannot say that, but that doesn't mean we need to promote their unity either. We can simply say that there are various still rather mysterious early non-hieroglyphic and possibly alphabetic inscriptions from Egypt, and leave it at that until or unless we can say s.t. demonstrable. Since the time estimates are rather crude, IMO the best approach is geographic, but a good argument could be made for temporal. kwami (talk) 17:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * While I see your point, I'm not sure I understand one element of what you're saying. I will also point out that 'we' have deciphered them.  In the discussion page for the article, I provided one citation in which they are identified as alphabetic inscriptions, and precursors to the Proto-Sinaitic corpus.  As I say, the two or three sources that have discussed them in English print do in fact say exactly that; see my citation to Woodward.  I can send you my personal correspondences with Darnell if you'd like also.


 * Once again, I am not sure how you are justifying the basic premise that what is put on Wiki must be published and thus verifiable with "oh well we don't know so much so this approach [that you, I might add, came up with] is clearly appropriate." Could you elaborate?  Could you send me to something that explains the complexity of interpretation (so I can cite it in my paper), please?  Because as it stands, the only references to possible non-alphabetic elements regarding the script were on the Hebrew Wiki page or Colless's blog.  Thanks.  Michael Sheflin (talk) 17:48, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * If the general consensus is that it's unquestionably alphabetic then we go with that. And if there's consensus that this is Proto-Sinaitic then we can move the article to that title, and just list the two regions/eras/discoveries. Yes, I would appreciate it if you could copy me on your exchanges w Darnell, thanks! kwami (talk) 19:34, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No problem, how do I do that? It's gmail convos.  Idk if there's "consensus" in the strict sense, because, as I said, there have been like three publications dealing specifically with Wadi el-Hol to date. Michael Sheflin (talk) 20:06, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Click on "email this user" on the right-hand side of this page. Or use my user name with gmail. kwami (talk) 20:34, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I sent you my correspondence with Dr. John C. Darnell and Dr. Chip Dobbs-Allsopp. I must acknowledge that my patience wore thin very quickly over the course of these correspondences. Nevertheless, they reiterated their key points to me. Since they don't consider the inscriptions related, it throws an even further fork in a Wadi el-Hol Script. Michael Sheflin (talk) 22:26, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks!
 * I don't know about the descent myth. It may be that our world is centered on Canaan, and that therefore all roads lead there. It might also be that Canaanite is simply better known than the alternatives, and therefore easier to work out connections with, and we go with what we know. kwami (talk) 23:51, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You're right, that is one possibility. However, Ugaritic, as a language, is older-attested than Proto-Canaanite.  Additionally, having just read Albright's 1969 translation "book" (it's like 60 pages long) which is the only source the American University in Cairo has for Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions' translations, the language attested there is also closer to Ugaritic.  In fairness, there is another debate over the relationship between Canaanite dialects and Ugaritic - although as many scholars reject this (direct) link.  The problem with tracing Semitic etymology through Canaanite dialects is the affrication of consonants that occurred from Proto NW Semitic to Proto Canaanite.  S2 merged with T_; S1 (later) merged with S2; Z merged with D_; S. and Z. may have merged; and T. almost certainly merged with other emphatics also.  The benefit of using Arabic is that, for whatever reason, it is the only modern Semitic language to preserve the disaffricated characters that are reconstructed closer to Proto-Semitic.  There's a good example somewhere, I can't remember it offhand.  But basically there's a word that is x-S^-x (I'm forgetting the root itself) in Hebrew.  However, if you trace the etymology only in Hebrew, the meaning is X, but the actual radical S^ is reconstructed as T_ in other languages.  Hence the root is x-S^-x only in Hebrew but actually x-T_-x in Semitic.  Again, if I were interested in trying to win an argument I could provide examples, but the point is still clear.  Woodward is a very good source for this.  From Proto Semitic to Proto NW Semitic there are some grammatical and semantic shifts.  From Proto NW to Proto Canaanite there are a series of affrications of consonants made more pronounced from the shift to Phoenician.  The problem is, for languages like Semitic languages that are based on consonantal root systems, a mis-identification of any component of the root negates the validity of the translation.  Michael Sheflin (talk) 00:28, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, Ishtar is a good example. Her name came from "Morning/Evening Star [Venus]" (Huehnergard in Woodward, 2008: 243).  In Akkadian, it was Is^-tar or sometimes Is^-dar particularly during the Akkad period (Porada, 1960: 118). In Ugaritic 3T_TR(T), in Arabian 3T_TR, in Hebrew 3S^TR.  Again, 3S^TR is not a Proto-Semitic root.  However, 3T_TR is.  If you trace the word only through Canaanite dialects, you find a meaningless name (unless you know about the S^-T_ relationship).  However, if you trace the Semitic origin of this word, you find that the consistent relationship between Venus and that goddess is supplemented by the fact that she (and/or Venus) were named for the same celestial phenomenon.  My point is that while Canaanite no doubt has a place in translation, its place should be limited to cross-comparison and Canaanite languages.  It is, at best, attested for slightly less time than the Ancient Arabian languages.  It is also not as old (in attestation) as the Ugaritic language.  Hence, I primarily see polemic rather than justification. Michael Sheflin (talk) 00:35, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Interestingly, also - that root is traced (possibly) by Huehnergard to a possible Proto-AA root related to Proto-IE hs2:ter (star). Be apprised also, I corrected the transliteration of hathor (which is h.wt-h.r (the enclosure of horus) and not h.ath.or). Michael Sheflin (talk) 00:42, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, obviously one would consider reconstructed proto-Semitic as well as attested languages and see where it fits in. Anything else would be irresponsible. I know things were only compared to Hebrew in the 19th century, but can't believe any serious scholar would be that sloppy today. kwami (talk) 01:54, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Perhaps (I agree personally). Nevertheless, the original issue (and we can move this to my talk page if you want - if it's getting too sloppy (as nothing is on my talk page)) was the organization of the page versus the established verifiable material.  Unfortunately, nobody besides myself and Colless see the inscriptions as a viable independent alphabet - and I must confess that I see some inconsistencies in Colless's treatment of both inscriptions as an alphabet (because he identifies T_ as S^ in the Vertical Inscription even though he identifies S^ with its standard form in the Horizontal Inscription a la that later affrication I had mentioned from Proto NW to Proto Canaanite).  Nevertheless, while I agree that the organization of the page may seem logical to us, it is apparently not logical to epigraphers.  Like... basically, while I agree with your original organizational concept (and if I can publish this thing will fight to reinstate it), it is not verified because it is not verifiable.  The same is problematic with the anecdotal translation elements on the page (like RB and 'L).  Again, my translation actually concurs with those statements, nevertheless I have not seen them in literature (only on Wiki - and actually that was enough for me to reject those claims for about a year). Michael Sheflin (talk) 11:55, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * But we're not claiming they're separate scripts, we're just not claiming they're the same script. Since they aren't translated, it's a bit premature to say. The organization is geographic, historical (in that these are two discoveries), and evidently temporal; "Middle Bronze Age scripts" comes from a rubric in O'Connor, where he lumps various Bronze Age Semitic scripts together. I preferred that over Proto-Sinaitic because the Wadi el-Hol stuff is not from the Sinai, and I thought that name would cause confusion. We can emphasize that it's assumed that these are the same script or a linear descent, if that's not clear enough. So I don't understand how the organization is not supported by the lit. kwami (talk) 21:18, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The lit expressly refers to the script at Wadi el-Hol as Proto-Sinaitic. I objected to that terminology also, and found no sympathetic ears.  Michael Sheflin (talk) 22:57, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * What if we tag in "Middle Bronze Age, AKA Proto-Sinaitic", and then have the two sections as "Sinai" and "WEH"? kwami (talk) 23:09, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Sounds reasonable to me. However, once again, I'm a grad student in International Relations (and not (presently) in a field related to paleography or epigraphy) this is not the established reasoning of actual professionals in the field: "The ancestor of these various Syro-Palestinian and Arabian writing systems is the so-called Proto-Sinaitic script, likely devised within Egypt by a Semitic people living there during the early second millennium BC (see Darnell et al. 2005:90-91; Hamilton 2006).  The earliest-known examples of the script come from Wadi el-Hol in Upper Egypt and date to c. 1850 BC (see Darnell et al. 2005:86-90).  Slightly less ancient examples (c. 1700 BC) come from Serabit al-Khadem in the Sinai Peninsula - presevered in inscriptions produced by Semitic workers in the turquoise mines of the region." (ed. Woodward, 2008: 3).


 * So... Sounds reasonable to me, and apparently you felt it was non-controversial enough to just do (since there's no Super-Kwami who automatically reverts your edits. However, I am also pretty sure that Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions are not limited to Sinai - that's just where Petrie first found them.  They have also been found in Palestine, and(?) in the Negev desert.  I think perhaps this demands more thought than knee-jerk reaction.  I think perhaps this demands actual thought rather than you continuing to just edit things yourself.  That being said, largely because of your previous efforts, I will provide the sidelines rationality and have no real interest in assisting anymore.  Michael Sheflin (talk) 16:49, 9 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I made some edits that I thought addressed your primary concern, that we were claiming these were two distinct scripts. If you now decide that offends you for some reason, fine. I can't read your mind. If you don't want to be here because I took your concerns into account, then I don't know why you were here to begin with. It's not like we can't revert anything you think is an error.


 * Also, according to the latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Darnell no longer maintains that Wadi el-Hol is older than Serabit. Yes, there are minor examples of proto-Sinaitic from Canaan, but they're all very short, mostly only a couple letters. Wadi el-Hol is evidently the most substantial site outside Serabit, but according to that article (which is a compilation and thus perhaps not terribly reliable), Serabit rather than el-Hol looks like the origin of the script, with proto-Sinaitic even influencing local hieroglyphic inscriptions carved by Canaanites. kwami (talk) 20:14, 9 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Kwami, I have consistently tried to stress, in the unfortunate 6 months or so we have been communicating, that your edits, while well taken, are consistently knee-jerk, thoughtless, and unilateral. I do not want to edit, you're correct, good job.  That being said there's no "I do or do not want to be here," as this is a webpage and not a real place.  I was reading through your article and your citation to Woodward... first of all cites Hamilton's article (in Woodward) - though actually the page number refers to Woodward's own introduction.  Hamilton is a Biblical Archaeologist, not a linguist.  He did not have a chapter in that book.  Also, that citation (to Proto-Canaanite) in the introduction - since people want to write without doing research - is on page 4 and not page 3 (and the author is Woodward, not Hamilton, and I'm unsure where the article title came from..., and I do not know the date of the online version of the book).  So that citation is maybe 1/3 or 1/4 in terms of holistic 'correctness.'


 * Also, again though you obviously can and will just pursue whatever sort of semi-twisted half-truth of the moment, the "redating" of Wadi el-Hol is only implicit in that (also Biblical Archaeological) article. Your point about me "not wanting to be here" relates to your utter ignorance as to why you - one person - should not have absolute and unmitigated control over editing this article.  You have consistently made points bordering on polemic - like Arabic is irrelevant in transliterating characters because Hebrew is standard.  You have also consistently challenged me (pretty much singularly) to find you citations referring to exactly what the established academic view is.  As a non-expert myself when I found many of those citations you made weird circuitous points like "oh, well, i've seen really good published literature in great sources that's garbage."  I'm sure you have, particularly if your house involves mirrors.  Cue one of your recent comments that no serious scholar would only look at Hebrew.  But then, if you go back to that table I eventually fought to have removed, Hebrew was the only modern Semitic language used for transcription on that chart.  This is, of course, but one example.  It involves transliteration and not translation, but the basis of the point is the same.  Of course, for transcription of Proto-Sinaitic, Albright consistently used English (or proto-IPA), Hebrew, and Arabic (Albright, 1969 - Oxford Press, for instance).


 * Orly Goldwasser mentions (in that Bib-Arch Review article), and this is why I didn't quite understand what you meant at first, that most "people" (Darnell etc) recognize Wadi el-Hol as dated to the 18th cty BC. That may be true, although this would be the first piece of evidence for that in publication (the citation that you provide, that I called you out on above (page 3) actually also says Wadi el-Hol is the oldest example coming from 1850 BC (Woodward: 3).  Of course, rather than actually examining the evidence, you chose either the most recent or most convenient piece.  There are probably strong paleographic reasons to consider some Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions older than the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions themselves.  Nevertheless, as best I can tell that little blurb at the article simply asserts that this implies one is older than the other, it is never explicit that the people cited actually think that - this is thus a point of synthesis on the point of that author, apparently.  I'm done for the time.  I like that you seem to privilege points that fit into whatever framework you yourself have developed - or have judged in the passing moment.  Rather than actually citing things properly or using a range - it's better to skirt the actual literature (like in real academic journals), particularly if one piece of new literature in one (perhaps reputable) online publication emerges.  Also, it's better to replace rather than append information.  So I guess, this is my attempt to give you one of those prestigious Wiki-awards, as you so clearly deserve another for your high level of intellectual merit.  Michael Sheflin (talk) 17:15, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * If I'm the only one bothering to edit the article, then we're going to be restricted to the info I have available. I tried looking up that article's sources, but did not have access to them. Of course, if you would like to send me copies, I'd be grateful. Any citable refs that the BAR article got it wrong would also be useful.


 * Claims in the immediate aftermath of an exiting discovery may be toned down ten years later. That's one reason I used the BAR article. Ideas about Serabit are not likely to have changed all that much, since they've been debated for generations, but ideas about Wadi el-Hol are likely to have changed substantially once Darnell's peers had a chance to fully evaluate the evidence.


 * As I pointed out before, if the Arabic language maintains proto-Semitic distinctions that have been lost in Phoenician/Hebrew (and that loss is s.t. that everyone acknowledges, BTW), that does not mean that the Arabic alphabet therefore retains letters that were lost in Phoenician/Hebrew. You cannot derive the recent history of the alphabet from much older changes in a language! That should be obvious, yet you maintained that they were equivalent for months, and now you're advocating it again? Very imaginative on your part, but that's not what an encyclopedia is for. kwami (talk) 20:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Had I not a midterm to contend with I would not be wasting my time. My point wasn't that I didn't want to be here, it is that your heavy-handed control over this one page has removed my desire to assist in its editing - particularly since in its current incarnation it does nobody any good.  Dude, you also can't expect me to send you sources.  I have access to exactly 1 English language library and JSTOR.  Aside from that, I have worked solely on my own desire to find sources.  If you have a corresponding impetus good luck to you, but if not, I think it is somewhat presumptuous to believe that your cursory research has made you an expert.


 * Since you are the only one allowing yourself to edit the article, could you please fix your disingenuous citation (#3). Additionally, Lane is a nineteenth century work - and is thus in the public domain, which presumably is why you favor it over the standard (Hans-Wehr).  Your points are circuitous.  If a language does not contain a particular consonant (T_ for instance) and thus roots that had previously contained that radical are shifted to S2 (or Hebrew shin, for instance), then the lack of this presence linguistically is likely to be reflected orthographically.  Since alphabets require a language, this point seems quite obvious.  Canaanite referred to a set of languages in this context.  It is why the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions are [whatever they are] and are not Egyptian.


 * Since you are working only from free sources, your information is no doubt fragmentary... hence you should really not be spearheading these edits, as I have continuously pointed out. If you read the rest of that Woodward book (note it's Woodward and not Hamilton...), you'll find that what allows the identification of Canaanite languages are certain linguistic, epigraphic, and orthographic trends.  Per your edit comment on the page - you assume that all the inscriptions are Canaanite (you're not alone) presumably because you are yet unaware of these features.  Canaanite languages (and the writing devised for them) eventually lost consonants were not lost (if you want to criticize my use of the word "retained") in the same process.  Hence there is no positive benefit to one language or alphabet (as a source of information) over the other, but there is a benefit to both or all over one.


 * Ugaritic is, in my opinion, not a Canaanite language (though this is more contentious in the field). This is reflected through the presence of characters not extant in Canaanite languages or alphabets, as well as linguistic features - also the relegation of S (in the Canaanite languages) to S3 in Ugaritic alphabet - identical to South Arabian.  The reason that Arabic is so poorly attested is that one of the only features that distinguishes it from the other North Arabian dialects is "al" - the article.  Hence since the development of this feature is ambiguous at present, the development of Arabic as attested is also somewhat ambiguous.  Likewise, it is impossible to identify "Canaanite" language except from language features.  So, perhaps having read and no doubt knee-jerk rejected what I have said now without actually following it, you could do me the courtesy of a personal privilege:  Explain why you assume that inscriptions are Canaanite?  Could it be because the BAR article said so without substantiating?  Where are the Canaanite linguistic features present in any of the inscriptions?  Where is the evidence that you... opted not to cite?  Sincerely... Michael Sheflin (talk) 05:58, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * First please explain first why you don't allow other people to own cats. I have a hard time following your prose, and don't see much connection between it and what you say you're addressing. I don't know how to respond in a meaningful way, since I wouldn't know what I'm responding to. (I'm not trying to be insulting, but I've always had considerable difficulty following your meaning.)
 * Basically, in an encyclopedia article, we follow what we can gather from WP:RSs. If you have RS's that are relevant here, by all means include them. If you don't because you don't want to be here, then don't complain that they're not included. Or notify another editor whose input you think might be worthwhile. There are several good editors here who are reasonably well qualified to write about this stuff.
 * I'll take a look at ref #3. kwami (talk) 06:10, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I do allow other people to own cats. ... (?)... Dude, again I'll say there is no here, wherein to be.  I tried to edit this page last September.  You reverted all of my edits.  Since you have reverted all my attempts (accept to correct the transliteration of Hathor... which isn't even on subject), I no longer wish to help edit.  I'm a quantum guy myself, but you don't see the linear causality there?  Ref #3 is just flagrantly disingenuous, and I will point out that your massive editing efforts resulted in only 2 correct citations.  So, either one of the two of us cuts twice without measuring once; or alternatively one of the two of us is content with measuring while the other cuts at anything that moves.  If you don't get my point here, it is that you keep changing your mind on what constitutes proper healthcare for cats.  Hence you keep shaving their backs, though they have eye-infections, and when their infections persist you do something else.  You keep reading, but you don't read sources in entirety (who has time right!) so as a result, you half-follow through on leads and when someone picks the lead apart you read half of something else.  Needless to say, despite trying all sorts of (perhaps) related things, the cats' eye infections persist.  (Honestly, what did that comment mean... and one of my cats has an eye infection which is why I used this example).  This is quite tiresome.  You should not be the gatekeeper, and I should not be the Rick Morranis that keeps funneling you information on a subject you presume you are qualified for.


 * Sorry to end that sentence in a preposition... on Michael Sheflin (talk) 06:38, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I reverted you not because I'm not "allowing" you to edit, but because you repeatedly added what appeared to be nonsense without reference or coherent justification. Primarily the eye-opening claim that the Arabic alphabet maintains proto-Sinaitic distinctions that disappeared in the interim. I'm now generally suspicious of anything you write, since you continue to maintain something that is clearly wrong. Or if it's right, then the entire history of the alphabet as we think we know it is wrong; either way, you need some good refs.


 * Note 3 looks good to me. I suggest you bring in someone else, such as dab, as we simply don't seem to understand each other, and without that it's not possible to work together profitably. kwami (talk) 06:50, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * What is wrong here? I am not arguing that Arabic derives from Proto-Sinaitic.  I am arguing that Arabic, deriving from ANA and ASA (North/South Arabian) alphabets orthographically retains characters present in Proto-Semitic, that Proto-Canaanite does not.  AFAIK everyone accepts that the Central and South Semitic languages and their writing systems preserve consonants that were affricated.  If you thought I was saying that Arabic retains consonants from Proto-Sinaitic, no... this is not what I was saying.  Since, AFAIK the consensus is that all alphabets derive from this original script - and that all Semitic languages derive from Proto-Semitic, then yes, I am saying that some (Canaanite in particular) affricated consonants that others (Arabian dialects) did not.  Hence when writing systems were derived for the latter group, they retained consonants from Proto-Semitic or NW Semitic or whatever, that Canaanite did not.


 * Anyway, none of this is the issue. I was talking about modern transcription, for orthographic clarity, not showing the descent to the Arabic alphabet.  As you say, that is irrelevant since there are well-known intermediary writing systems.  I objected to Hebrew without Arabic.  As far as I remember, my point was never specifically about Arabic alphabetic ancestry, but rather about retention of consonants in Arabic as, for instance, in contrast to Hebrew.  If you do some more research, you'll find that most reputable comparative paleo-orthographic charts include IPA, Hebrew, and Arabic.  Since Hebrew is actually just as far away as Arabic, I objected to the exceptionalism - Hebrew derives from the Aramaic alphabet, though original Hebrew derives from Phoenician.  Arabic was constructed around the time of the Quran, from previous alphabetic trends.  It retained the orthographic elements therein fairly well, and constructed new ones.  Nevertheless, implying that the orthographic separation of Arabic and its distant ancestors is greater than that of Hebrew and its ancestors is just patently ignorant.  Michael Sheflin (talk) 07:00, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Dude... Note 3 refers to a book edited by Roger D. Woodward. Look at the title of the link you posted.  Hamilton is not an author of any section of that book.  How does that look good to you?  Michael Sheflin (talk) 07:02, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, sorry, I thought you meant the point that it was making. kwami (talk) 07:05, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Table/Image placement
In regards to this, this, and then this... what about moving the image to a cell in the table which rowspans all of the other rows? — <span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace ;font-style:italic">V = IR (Talk&thinsp;&bull;&thinsp;Contribs) 00:35, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that should work. kwami (talk) 01:21, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * lol.. got an edit conflict trying to save the change, but I just saved it with the image in the table. It took some massaging with the use of some style CSS, since the first row of the table is a title row, but it looks fairly decent like that. Better? — <span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace ;font-style:italic">V = IR (Talk&thinsp;&bull;&thinsp;Contribs) 01:58, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that looks good. Another possibility is to embed both in a invisible table, but this works too. kwami (talk) 02:02, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Another table crossed my mind, but the extra wikitext... 6 on one hand, half-a-dozen on the other really, but using a single table is kind of a cleaner solution I think. Anyway, it's cool that you're happy with it this way. I kind of ignored the image and the table initially, so ya got me thinking about it at least. — <span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace ;font-style:italic">V = IR  (Talk&thinsp;&bull;&thinsp;Contribs) 02:24, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Your Romanization is wrong
You are not following the rules of Korean romanization. I suggest you read up on the article: Korean romanization and Revised Romanization of Korean (the current standard system used in Korea). Things are Romanized based on the pronunciation, NOT how it is spelled. You are not doing any readers any favors giving them inaccurate information. If you don't have any basic knowledge of Korean, then you probably shouldn't be undoing other people's edits.


 * More information and examples here on the talk page.--Bluesoju (talk) 06:15, 9 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I am familiar with the system. You apparently are not. There are two approaches: phonetic and morphophonemic. Both are acceptable. Both are used. If you don't like one of them, bring it up for review. But a system that hinders understanding of the article is not appropriate. kwami (talk) 08:00, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

A request for formal mediation of the dispute concerning Mediation case name has been filed with the Mediation Committee (MedCom). You have been named as a party in this request. Please review the request at Requests_for_mediation/Korean_grammar and then indicate in the "Party agreement" section whether you would agree to participate in the mediation or not.

Mediation is a process where a group of editors in disagreement over matters of article content are guided through discussing the issues of the dispute (and towards developing a resolution) by an uninvolved editor experienced with handling disputes (the mediator). The process is voluntary and is designed for parties who disagree in good faith and who share a common desire to resolve their differences. Further information on the MedCom is at Mediation Committee; the policy the Committee will work by whilst handling your dispute is at Mediation Committee/Policy; further information on Wikipedia's policy on resolving disagreements is at Resolving disputes.

If you would be willing to participate in the mediation of this dispute but wish for its scope to be adjusted then you may propose on the case talk page amendments or additions to the list of issues to be mediated. Any queries or concerns that you have may be directed to an active mediator of the Committee or by e-mailing the MedCom's private mailing list (click here for details).

Please indicate on the case page your agreement to participate in the mediation within seven days of the request's submission.

Thank you, Bluesoju (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:54, 10 March 2010 (UTC).


 * We normally discuss things at the appropriate articles before going to mediation. I've asked for input at the romanization article, but as yet no-one has responded. As I've said, the very article you directed me to illustrates the format that you are objecting to. kwami (talk) 10:44, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Prekmurian/Prekmurje
Thank you for commenting on this discussion. I hope that you will provide additional comments as more editors contribute. Doremo (talk) 07:25, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Toki Pona
I have conducted a reassessment of the above article following a request on the talk page. You are being notified as you have made a number of contributions to the article. I have found some concerns which you can see at Talk:Toki Pona/GA2. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 00:33, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

reverts on the Tibetan dialects
Hi, Kwamikagami. If you can spare a moment, please would you discuss your reverts on my cleanup of and content added to the Amdo Tibetan language at Talk:Amdo Tibetan language. Thank you for your time. Moonsell (talk) 06:06, 15 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Tibetologist made the same points that I would. I've suggested a central page for discussion. kwami (talk) 06:12, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

One language, a number of dialects
Hi, Kwami. I've wound several discussion threads on several talk pages in to one called: "One language, a number of dialects" on Talk:Tibetan languages. Please, if you can get the time, would you like to follow it there. Best wishes. Moonsell (talk) 11:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

User:Keymanweb/Keymanweb
I have just discovered User:Keymanweb/Keymanweb, and then I remembered you as the Wikipedian most likely (to my knowledge) to be able to use the tool for working with different scripts. Here are some related links. I will watch here for your reply. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:41, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * TypeIt.org - Type foreign characters easily
 * Clavier multilingue en ligne LEXILOGOS &gt;&gt;
 * Learn to Type redirected to All about typing
 * Foreign Language Characters, Diacritics, Accent Marks, Computers, KeyBoard Help, kbh
 * TypeMatrix Home Page
 * Penn State Computing with Foreign Symbols
 * ishida &gt;&gt; utilities: Unicode character pickers
 * World Star Free Dictionaries Translators Encyclopedias (keyboards in 47 languages [2 for Chinese] at bottom of page)
 * Online Talking Dictionary (keyboards in 10 languages [2 for Turkish])

Tibetan languages - need for citations
Just noticed you removed the flag from the top of the Tibetan languages article saying it needed citations. I think you removed the wrong one. The other flag, saying it needs an expert makes a lot less sense to me.

As for the need for citations, thanks to your edition now we have one. The other, older citation is a broken link and needs to be removed. That is hardly enough for the whole article. I didn't put either of the flags there but I think we should keep the "needs citations" one, not as a badge of dishonour to the article, but as a request for others who read it to help out and add citations. What do you think? Moonsell (talk) 00:00, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * We have two citations. The tag said there were none. Therefore the tag was wrong. Of course, we can always use more! kwami (talk) 09:09, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Monophthong for the "a" sound in Spanish
Hello Kwami:

I have been researching the "a" sound in Spanish for about a week, and I thought I would improve your example of "father" with another example, namely "tar". The reason for this was simple. "Father" is a rather ambiguous example because in some regions of North America, it is pronounced more like "Fo-ther", where the "a" and "o" sound have merged. This is called the Father-bother merger. If you are a linguist, you may be aware of this. I just wanted to make sure that everyone who comes to the IPA for Spanish has another example to follow that is not ambiguous and is often used as the only example for the "ah" sound in Spanish. Here is a case in point:, where you can see that the only example given is the word "car."

I think that the word "tar" is precisely the example you need to avoid ambiguity. I have no idea why you would so quickly dismiss it, unless you felt offended that anyone would question the word "father" as the sole example for this sound. I thought Wikipedia was supposed to be unbiased. It looks like some editors like to wield their "power" to strike out sensible additions without any good reason.

I did not see any mention of Spanish on your user page. Since when have you become an expert on this language? :) Just curious. Skol fir (talk) 19:04, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The Spanish is easy. It's the English that's difficult.
 * For those speakers, at least in the US, who do not pronounced father like bother, it is father that is closer to the Spanish vowel [a]. For those who pronounce them the same, [ɑ], AFAIK they also have this vowel in tar. However, r does funky things to vowels in a lot of dialects, so I like to avoid it where possible. Do you know of any dialects where tar is [a] but father is [ɑ]? kwami (talk) 21:06, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "Do you know of any dialects..." - Yes. I am one such person who since elementary school in Manitoba, Canada has pronounced "father" like "bother" and "tar" like "papa". If you had read the link I gave you above, about the Father-bother merger you would see that this merger of the two sounds a and o "occurs in almost all varieties of North American English (exceptions are accents in northeastern New England, such as the Boston accent, and in New York City)." Skol fir (talk) 21:22, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Don't be rude. "If I had read"? It says nothing about "except in Manitoba". Are you saying you don't pronounce "father" like "papa"? Could you be a little more specific? kwami (talk) 21:59, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I did not mean to be rude. :) I just wanted to point out that my example of Manitoba is an example of this merger, because I am pronouncing "godfather" as "gawd-fawther," which is a merger of the "o" and the "a" into one sound, "aw". The two exceptions mentioned in the quote above (NE and NYC) are the exceptions because they pronounce the two sounds differently (i.e.,no merger). That is all. Skol fir (talk) 22:30, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * So, for you "tar" is closer to Spanish /a/ than "father" is? kwami (talk) 22:51, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, that is exactly right. For me, the Spanish /a/ most closely resembles the word "tar", while I pronounce the "a" in father more like the "aw" sound, which might be explained by something called the Canadian Shift. This was just pointed out to me at a similar discussion that I noticed you also joined at Wikipedia talk:IPA for Spanish. In fact, I am about to answer your question there as well. Skol fir (talk) 04:39, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Just to throw in another view, after a discussion at Talk:Southern American English, I've come to realize that a good example for Spanish /a/ is "blinding" (/blandɪn/); in SAE its first vowel is the same as Spanish blando (I don't use "blind" because its vowel is long: /blaːnd/). I'm not actually suggesting a change, but rather that "a" as /a/ is not a familiar sound to many North Americans.--Curtis Clark (talk) 13:17, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay. Whatever people decide on there is fine; it can be a bit complicated. kwami (talk) 13:52, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I think that a definitive example of the Spanish [a] sound would be the word mahi-mahi. The two "a's" in this word have the same sound, and are exactly like the Spanish "a." Skol fir (talk) 00:47, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Canadian Gaelic
Kwami, hate to bother you but someone is edit warring on Canadian Gaelic, trying to push a (to my and other editors' POV) very strange agenda about "Canadian Gaelic" being an unacceptable term. He also, in his efforts to purge the Gaelic, keeps breaking the link to the map. Much obliged if you could put in a word. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:31, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Hey Kwami, thank you for trying to mediate that edit war over on Canadian Gaelic. It’s still raging, broken file links, bad grammar, but I'm grateful for your efforts. &mdash;Muckapedia 14:45, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations
An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Articles for deletion/List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations (3rd nomination). Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:05, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Pinghua
The original designation of Pinghua as a stub was due in no small part to the lack of objective content and the absence of citations, since then the content has been improved a great deal and citations have been added. What further is required for the article to fairly have the stub classification removed?Johnkn63 (talk) 11:49, 25 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll take care of it. Gimme a sec to read up on the rating standards. kwami (talk) 16:23, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for changing the designation on Talk:Pinghua. On the Pinguhua page itself the is a Sino-tibetan stub tag the purpose of which seems a little unclear to me. Suggestions as to the type of material that could be added to the article would be most welcome. Johnkn63 (talk) 02:45, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Africa
Can you please come and have a look at the Africa article as I think the edit conflict has almost been resolved now. Yattum (talk) 21:34, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

ANI
Notifying you of an ANI discussion. Colipon+ (Talk) 19:26, 27 March 2010 (UTC)