Hi Kwami. Firstly, all the best for the new year. I see that the article !Kung language mentions South Africa in the infobox (added by you long after the other three countries) and also in the text, but not in the intro. What I actually want clarity on is whether these later additions on the !Kung in South Africa refer to indegenous South African San or whether these are the San from Angola and Namibia who were withdrawn from those countries by the South African military for fear of reprisals for collaborating with the SA army against the MPLA and SWAPO. Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 01:05, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The latter. "Northern Khoisan" wasn't originally spoken that far south. — kwami (talk) 02:38, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Kwamikagami, thanks for your attention to this dispute. Unfortunately some users are trying to achieve ambitious ethnocentric aims and not historically-verified and documented facts are seeking especially in case of so-called the Greater Kurdistan territory. Our goal in free encyclopedia is to promote realistic and not ethnocentric knowledge. I provided some valid citations and sources to discuss but they were moved several times by the user Gomada.
Another falsifying and WP:POVPUSH objective evidence is in cases of Feyli people page [1] and their language [2] which was converted to Feyli Kurds and Southern Kurdish language by this users Oblivious to hot discussions and dispute over their Lurish or Kurdish identity. I hope we find a solution for this dispute. I proposed a move requset to convert these pages to their original names Feyli People and Feyli language and not Feyli Lurs to discuss this pages more honestly. You can see many opposition views over these pages in their talk section.
I moved to "Feyli people" pending resolution of the dispute, but "Southern Kurdish" is the COMMONNAME in the lit so that stays. Whether the people are Kurds is irrelevant to whether the language is Kurdish. — kwami (talk) 02:45, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Dear admin, hello and thank you for your attention. But due to inserting two empty brackets, the edit has been undid by another administrator.
Please have another looking to this page.
Best Regards--Shadegan (talk) 12:50, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Kwamikagami:' Unfortunately your warnings and edits has resulted in widespread ethnocentric and ambitious edits by some vandal users. I waited for your judge about the dispute pages but they were completely reverted and deviated by ethnocentric edits. Please pay attention to these pages. Best--Shadegan (talk) 21:03, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I notice that Japanese Wikipedia has added some footnotes quoting the original Edo-era documents, so I've written stuff at Talk:Dai dai shogi#some of the alternate piece moves. Hopefully my translation and interpretation are not those of a blind idiot (although that would make a reasonable name for a shogi-variant piece). It is to confirm this that I write to you! ^_^
Regarding gameplay, though, I did give this and maka-dai-dai a try. The latter is more playable, but both are ridiculous IMHO. The Chess Variant Pages has also finally added articles about the shogi variants, but even they do not cover tai shogi, and their article on taikyoku shogi is only directly quoted from that Japanese book published about it. (I assume tai stopped being impressive when taikyoku was invented. Neither is the largest chess variant anymore, given the existence of 16×16×16 chess since 1996.) Double sharp (talk) 16:37, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bugi language (Papuan) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. --Tavix(talk) 19:56, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello,
I understand you are from Japan and not a native of India. I want to know the reasons for which you have deleted the authentic Kannada language native speakers map added by me. No less valid reason is acceptable and can hide the facts for long. Truth alone shall always triumph no matter how hard the efforts made to hide it are! Satyameva Jayate. Love from Karnataka and India.
Cheers NitinBhargava2016 (talk) 14:47, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi kwami,
I'm against your removing of my articles of Kannada language native speakers map and their total population. As far as its rank among world language speakers is concerned, its not a problem to me. I am saying this as I am neutral to the topic and only in favour of the truth, not blindly relying on some university's flawed linguistic maps rather than observing the ground truths.
I am going to accept only valid reasons for removing my maps. If you are not ready to put back my maps, then the current flawed version of Kannada native speakers map on wiki must also be immediately removed as its not based on ground realities[PS: Columbia university study reference is not a proof of ground reality]. I have visited and interacted with people in all these areas.
Also, the Kannada population of 50 million is based on 2015 Government census estimates and not a mere 40 million of 2001! If you are not ready to update this population, then at least year 2001 - 40 million should be mentioned along with year 2015 - 50 million speakers, which has highly valid references.
I'm ready for a healthy scholarly debate based on the ground realities. I invite you to India to visit these areas, know the lingua-franca of the true native speakers of these regions considering that hundreds of thousands have migrated to the border regions of Kannada native speakers as economic/social migrants in 19th and 20th centuries and it continues unabated till date!
Cheers,
NitinBhargava2016 (talk) 15:17, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sources. We go by reliable sources. For linguistic info, you need linguistic sources, not whatever you can cherry-pick off the internet to maximize the population. — kwami (talk) 01:37, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As for the "ground realities", @NitinBhargava2016: might find WP:OR useful. There must be reliable sources out there, right? Uanfala (talk) 01:48, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If you use your own observations, that will be original research. And you can't use that as a source on wikipedia. You need sources that are already published. You might find WP:SOURCE useful. Also, please remember to indent your comments on talk pages. Thanks. Uanfala (talk) 21:18, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi,
As far as the Kannada native speakers map is concerned, its based on my research of having visited the border regions of Kannada speaking areas and Karnataka and on 'ground realities'. No one is cherry-picking stuff off the Internet here. Forget the issue about population or even the idea of maximising it. However, the Kannada native speakers map is based on facts and ground realities.
Let me explain the nature of the so called 'reliable sources' of linguistics for linguistic information on which Wikipedia's 'masters' depend on :
The current map of Kannada excludes following Kannada speaking regions from North West (Karwar) to South West (Kasaragod) in clockwise order :
Gokarna, Ankola, Karwar, Belagavi, Hukkeri, Gadhinglaj, Sankeshwar, Saundalaga, Chikkodi, Kagal, Hupari, IchalKaranji, Kurundwad, Shirol, Arag, Lingnoor, Athani, Jath, Nandeshwar, Mangalwedha, Solapur, Naldurg, Murum, Belamb, Omerga, Bhalki, Aurad, Degloor, Madanoor, West Bodhan, Hunsa, Bichkunda, Jukkal, Kangti, Narayankhed, Zahirabad, Kohir, Malchalma, West Tandur(Karankote, Nawandgi), Utkoor, Ujjelli, West Makthal, Maganur, Macharla, Sindanur, Yemmiganur, Pattikonda, Adoni, Alur, Aspari, Guntakal, Vajrakarur, Pennar Ahobila, Ballari, Rayadurga, Kalyandurga, Roddam, Parigi, Madakasira, Hindupur, Lepakshi, Gudibande, Gauribidanur, Chikkaballapur, Sidlaghatta, Kolar, Malur, Bangarapet, South West of - Bagepalli, Chintamani, Srinivasapur taluks, West Mulbagal, Kolar Gold Fields, South West Kuppam, Hosur, North West Krishnagiri, Maharajakade, Vepanahalli, Marandahalli, Denkanikote, Male Mahadeshwarabetta of Kollegal, Hogenakal, Biligundla, Thalli, Anchetty, Rayakote, Burgur, Gundri, Sujjal Kere, Germala, Hasanur, Thalavadi, Ittare, entire Nilgiris plateau, Kotagiri, Coonoor, Ooty, Gudalur, Attappadi, Silent Valley National Park, Amarambala wildlife sanctuary hills, Kakkadampoyil North hills, entire Wayanad plateau, Mananthavadi, Kalpetta, Sultan Battery, Kodagu district (here Kannada is spoken along with Kodava Takk in Madikeri, Virajpet and Ponnampet 'Hobli's; elsewhere only Kannada is spoken), Kasaragod district up to Kanhangad (Hosdurga) and Dakshin Kannada districts (here Kannada is spoken along with Tulu).
The map misses South half of Chikkamagalur district, entire Hassan district, Kodagu district, South West of Mysore and Chamarajanagar districts which are the core of Achcha (pure) Kannada speaking regions!
Other Kannada regions excluded from the map are :
East Pavagada taluk, Gurumatkal of Yadgir district, Bidar, Raichur, Ballari and Belagavi cities also! Nilgiris, Wayanad district. Mantralaya, Hindupur, West Penukonda, etc.,
If you just want to dismiss this detailed information as some lengthy stuff unworthy of examining and incorporating it in the wiki article, please go ahead! One can only be sorry for such sad state of affairs at Wikipedia and apathy towards the truth. If you want reliable sources as reference for this information, I may not be able to provide them as Justice Mahajan Committee report is not available on-line and is protected by copyrights and is only in the form of written material in books.
Update these areas in the map soon, else let Wikipedia lose completely its already eroding credibility!
NitinBhargava2016 (talk) 09:38, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sources cited in articles don't need to be online or copyright-free. Uanfala (talk) 11:11, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Uanfala,
Then can you be of some help by reinstating my map on Kannada native speakers back?NitinBhargava2016 (talk) 17:24, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker) Reports by justices are not reliable sources. Nor are articles in journals published in 1836 reliable indicators of contemporary demographics. I suggest you find contemporary reliable secondary sources that back up your map. --regentspark (comment) 21:32, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nomination for deletion of Template:Under construction/Rutgers[edit]
Hi there, this may seem silly to bring up now, but back in 2009, on the Tupelo page, you added a reference to Sunset Western Garden Book, 1995:606–607 with your edit here. Do you still have the book? We were wondering if the book actually applies the pepperidge tree common name to the the genus Nyssa or merely to the species Nyssa sylvatica.
I removed your reference and the pepperidge tree common name because I believe them to be botanically inaccurate for describing the entire Nyssa genus considering that other editions of the book only describe at the species level. I have been criticized for doing so since I don't have access to the exact edition you cited, though I do have access to other editions. Since you cited the book and I am wondering if you can tell us if Sunset Western Garden Book 1995:606-607 is referring to the actual genus or just the species. Or otherwise, are comfortable with the modifications and the current state of Tupelo? Thanks.--MCEllis (talk) 17:44, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Now it occurs to me you may have only been using Sunset Western Garden Book for its pronunciation guide regarding the Tupelo and Nyssa names, rather than as a botanical reference. While my concern was primarily fixing the botanical inaccuracies of the first sentence which was largely unchanged since your edits in 2009.--MCEllis (talk) 18:04, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted my accidental removal of your citation. It is next to the pronunciation on the Tupelo page as you originally intended. My mistake. I originally thought it was being used to reference an inaccurate common name.--MCEllis (talk) 18:32, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No problem! — kwami (talk) 00:39, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwami, my name is Kwabena and I live in Southern California. I notice that on every article dealing with Ghanaians, Akans, and Ashantis, you seem to always put mutli-racial people on. Stop It. Mixed Ghanaians are NOT representative of a population of millions. Thanks. -Kwabena.
Yellowfiver (talk) 18:24, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Can you link me to an offending edit? I haven't edited a Ghanaian article in years except to merge a content fork. — kwami (talk) 21:12, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hey there! I'm curious why you merged the Macro-Yaeyama language group with Southern Ryukyuan and replaced the terminology cited in The Handbook of Ryukyuan Languages. In the text, the authors were very clear that a distinction must be made between Macro-Yaeyama languages and other Southern Ryukyuan languages, and I therefore thought it should receive its own page and linguistic family tier in the infobox. Please let me know what I'm missing so I can improve my future linguistics edits. Cheers! — Lrschneider (talk) 05:51, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. If the Handbook uses it, that's fine. Revert my merge if you like. (I thought maybe it was a Glottolog name, which often aren't used outside Glottolog.) It's weird to have such an undeveloped article for S. Ryukyuan, and since a comparison is being made w Miyako, I thought that would be a good place (and a more visible place) for it, but it doesn't really matter. — kwami (talk) 02:41, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
File:Micmac pater noster.jpg listed for discussion[edit]
That should be it. One was a copy error, I think; another a false claim, and the last (on the PUA page) pointless. Might've missed some on the last. — kwami (talk) 05:48, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Mandarin (linguistics). Since you had some involvement with the Mandarin (linguistics) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Si Trew (talk) 19:22, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I was just looking at the article on Whistled language. I had never before heard of a whistled language. I have a few questions:
1) In the lead I found this sentence:
English speakers experience something similar when they listen to sine-wave speech.
I'm wondering if more could be said so that this makes sense to interested English speakers.
2) I notice that there is no audio file so that readers could hear a sample of whistled speech. It would be nice if one or more could be found to add.
3) Do you think this article is too technical to allow for the possibility of improvement if the article were selected as one of the "Today's Articles for Improvement", or should it be left to linguistics experts? I notice there is a tag at the top of the article that has been there since 2009. – Corinne (talk) 02:05, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Corinne. I have no idea what "sine-wave speech" is. Without a link to an explanatory article, that should probably be deleted.
I suspect there must be audio samples of West African whistled speech available, since it's used by probably over a hundred million people, but I don't have any myself. Some Nigerian radio stations use e.g. whistled Yoruba for their call signs and slogans, or at least they used to, so it's not like whistled speech is obscure.
I see that I'm at least partly responsible for the current title. IMO it really should be moved back to whistled speech. The current title and lead suggest that there are whistled languages, as in languages that rely on whistling the way ASL relies on signing. There are not, there are just spoken languages conveyed via whistling.
As for the article being technical, as with anything you just need to understand the material you're using. The interesting aspects IMO are the social ones, which don't require much linguistics. It doesn't look like much has been done recently. — kwami (talk) 01:41, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwami,
Can you please let me know the reason for which my article on Moundadan Chetty language deleted? It had all the valid references. It is a separate language similar to Badaga and Kannada. If you consider it not to be a separate language which has ISO request reference and a detailed case study also as references, what else is it? A dialect of some known language? What are the valid references to prove this? Please enlighten me. Also, please let me know your opinion about Edanadan Chetty language which is not the same as Moundadan Chetty or Wayanadan Chetty languages. Thanks!–NitinBhargava2016 (talk) 02:43, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The Erina language article looks superficially plausible. But I can't find anything about it in the article links or on the internet; so like another user I am beginning to suspect it is a hoax. Do you know anything about it? —teb728tc 08:59, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwamikagami, there is this Biscayan dialect article with a clarification tag, I wonder if you could add the phonetics for those sounds, since you seem to be familiar with Basque phonology and phonetics. That would be helpful, regards Iñaki LL (talk) 21:38, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Can't add a phonetic transcription without a ref to that dialect in particular, as it might differ from others. But the real problem there is that I can't parse the sentence. I have no idea which converge to what. — kwami (talk) 21:37, 9 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwamigami, ummm, is it about the Basque orthographical system? Basically it is about tx (Spanish ch) and tz (like in English "its"), and x (like English "share") and z (voiceless, = French intervocalic "ss" like in poisson), but letters spelled "s" and "ts" is a bit more tricky, something in between "tz" and "tx", voiceless. I do not know if I explained myself. Iñaki LL (talk) 22:34, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwami. Neither Voice (phonetics) or Voicelessness cites simple examples for the 'common reader' to make sense of. There are references to "obstruents" and "pairs", but at no point do we make it clear which are which — using pairs that are obvious to the average reader such as [d and t], [b and p] instead of more obscure examples invloving [dj] etc.. So, even though it is not (always) that clear-cut, can't we add something to the effect that "simplistically speaking/ traditionally, the voiced are..... and the voiceless are ...? Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 16:24, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Of course. There are (or were) simple examples on WP, I remember seeing them, but they may be in the articles specifically for English. Not sure if you're asking me for permission to change the article (sometimes people do) or for an explanation. — kwami (talk) 02:56, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwami. Thanks for your reply. I primarily wanted to hear your take on this because things change and I might not be aware of latest theories/ findings/ trends etc. When I studied linguistics in 82-86, voiced and voiceless were clear opposites. Because the middle ground seems to have since vanished I was not sure if obvious examples such as [d and t], [b and p] are not longer accepted because of possible grey areas. If I failed to make myself understood (very likely), don't worry about it, I will come back to it at a later stage. Thanks. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 19:15, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
IPA [p] and [b] are distinguished by voicing, but English /p/ and /b/ are not exactly [p] and [b], or at least not always. (I just heard a song where "game" is pronounced with a [k] when stressed, with a [g] when not.) As long as it's clear that English and e.g. Spanish /p, b/ aren't identical, and that English isn't the best illustration, that should probably be good enough. Plus, I think English fricatives are pretty-much distinguished by voicing, and since it's easier to feel the buzz in your throat with [z] than with [b], that may be the way to go. — kwami (talk) 02:57, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Deviating from the topic, speaking of "game" with a [k], white South African - primed by the written form, pronounce "Shaka" as "shah-ker" and will not 'notice' that Nguni speaker actually say "Shaah-gah" even if they hear it repeatedly, unless it is deliberately brought to their attention. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 23:51, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwami,
The correct classification as per Harvey (2008) is Yirram (Jaminjung, Ngaliwurru, Nungali), Jingulu, and Ngurlun (Ngarnka, Binbinka, Gudanji, Wambaya). It has been suggested that Jaminjung and Ngaliwurru are closely related and that Binbinka, Gudanji and Wambaya are also closely related. I use the term 'language', because that is the appropriate term for speakers and owners of these languages. The ISO and derived codes for Australian languages are infamously incorrect. Ngarnka and Gudanji are not in a dialectal relationship, and no one has suggested this for fifty years or so (cf. any of the references on the page). This is why I deleted the ISO and glottolog codes. They're not very useful at all in this context, and actually serve to obscure the linguistic relationships between the languages. Please delete them again. West Barkly is an old term that is no longer considered genetic. It's a geographic grouping of Jingulu and Ngurlun. Please undo your adjustments. If you have relevant sources that support your case, let me know.
Regards, David. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Osgarby (talk • contribs) 05:45, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi David. No, I don't doubt your sources, but we should be consistent. The Mirngi etc. articles shouldn't contradict this one. Also, if the ISO or Glottolog codes are poorly defined we still need to report them as they are, though of course we can say how they're wrong. Sorry, no time tonight to fix things up. Will continue when I can. — kwami (talk) 06:12, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwami. I see you've changed the name of the entire article now from Ngarnka to Ngarnji, you've changed the alternative names around, and you've adjusted the information panel on the right as well. All of these adjustments are incorrect. Please revert all of these changes, as my original information was very precise about language names and ethnonyms. It is a complex distinction for Australian languages, and much of the information about these languages is unpublished, so while I'm not sure what your sources are, I know they are not up to date. The language name is Ngarnka and the enthnicity is Ngarnji (the distinction being in the gender of the noun: neuter vs. masculine). It is a similar distinction between, the neighbouring language Jingulu, spoken by the Jingili people (again, neuter vs. masculine). I'm not sure why you are making edits to this article. Do not feel the need to fix things up with this article in future, beyond reverting the changes you have made. Regards, David. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Osgarby (talk • contribs) 09:58, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it's certainly necessary to correct errors like with the ISO code. As for the name, if the ethnicity is Ngarnji, then it's the Ngarnji language. That's the default for naming language articles on WP. — kwami (talk) 03:39, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've heard this term ages ago, in an informal conversation like this one [3], and naively thought you might be interested in writing something on it or creating a redirect. Regards. Materialscientist (talk) 01:06, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I think we have an article for that. I'll check for a rd tomorrow maybe. THanks. — kwami (talk) 03:41, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Kwami -- There has been a tag with just "Pronunciation?" in the first line of the article George Santayana for a long time. If you have time, could you either supply the requested pronunciation guide or link to one, or delete the tag if you think no guide is necessary? It looks bad there at the beginning of the article. Thanks. – Corinne (talk) 01:45, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I noticed that you interacted with ZH8000 some time ago. So did I recently, and I found their contributions and method of interaction with others questionable at best. I'm considering whether to initiate a discussion with them about this, and if need be, a community discussion. Would you be interested in participating in these discussions? Regards, Sandstein 17:25, 20 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwami,
please have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Siouan_languages for the inclusion of the latest Language Science Press volume.
IMHO the LangSci books are a useful complement for Wikipedia articles on languages in general, but I have a conflict of interest and are a bit hesitant to include them. For Yakkha and Mauwake, things were beyond doubt, but Siouan is only 99% in my view.
I would appreciate if a principled solution how to deal with this could be found.
Jasy jatere (talk) 12:43, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The first one has zero-width spacing (200B) and the other one characters in PUA. Can you please deal with these pages? -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:41, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Bangbay language. Since you had some involvement with the Bangbay language redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Stefan2 (talk) 21:36, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Boro language (Atlantic-Congo). Since you had some involvement with the Boro language (Atlantic-Congo) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Stefan2 (talk) 21:36, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'd have expected something like [ˈtɛnᵻsiːn] or [ˈtɛnᵻsaɪn] for tennessine, following the stress of Tennessee, as well as iodine and astatine (the other trisyllabic halogens). Moscovium and oganesson seem fine, but I admit to being really uncertain as to how nihonium is supposed to be pronounced: I can't seem to make up my mind whether that o is supposed to be [oʊ] or [ɒ] in English. Double sharp (talk) 13:10, 2 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nihonium is presumably the same as Nipponian. Tennessine is just following Anglo-Latin conventions. Could easily be irregular. Let's see how people work it out when the name's accepted. — kwami (talk) 00:56, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, it doesn't. I assume it will be like Sigurd Hoffmann once said on the pronunciation of copernicium: individuals will decide on it, even if they disagree. In that case, Periodic Videos (as linked on YouTube) should be an adequate source, giving the pronunciation of a renowned chemist. Double sharp (talk) 03:37, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This guy uses Double Sharp's for tennessine and mine for the others, except that he makes the first o of oganesson long. That could be a British thing, since the brits often lack trisyllabic laxing, but it seems he has a short o in the person's name. So maybe for him it's short o in normal speech and long o when enunciating pedagogically? That's a common enough phenomenon. So I changed tennessine but left oganesson as is.
That's the best Youtube source I could fine. — kwami (talk) 20:30, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
On a related note, since you made the Wikimedia Uus-TableImage.png image, could you make the Nh-TableImage.png, Mc-TableImage.png, Ts-TableImage.png and Og-TableImage.png images? Urhixidur (talk) 00:17, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I just updated it, but sure, I could do that. But we don't use that file anymore, do we? Could you show me the files you want updated directly so I'm sure to start from the right version? — kwami (talk) 07:13, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm asking for new images, not updates. They are used by the Wiktionaries, for instance. Urhixidur (talk) 15:08, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. Done. — kwami (talk) 04:52, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Kwami, if you have a minute, would you look at Washo language? There's a guy there who is using his misinterpretation of a page out of Mithun's survey to mess with the consonant chart and replace a glottalized c' with ć because he can't correctly read the poor photocopy on a web site and thinks that's what a c with a superimposed apostrophe is. He refuses to read the Talk page and is edit warring. Thanks. --Taivo (talk) 20:41, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Added my two bits, but looks like it's been resolved. — kwami (talk) 05:19, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed that a number of language articles are using dashes ("–," Unicode x2013) instead of hyphens ("-," Unicode x2010) in hyphenated language names. Is there a way to get a bot to correct these errors? Dashes/minuses should be used between numbers, and hyphens should be used between letters. I saw that you replaced a hyphen with a dash for the entry "Uralic-Yukaghir languages" (hyphenated) to redirect to "Uralic–Yukaghir languages" (dashed), which should be vice versa. Nicole Sharp (talk) 04:13, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
They're not errors. En dashes are used in several linguistic publications where two branches or places are joined to form a family name. Hyphens are used for prefixes etc. Of course, some typesetters don't bother with the difference, but on WP we do. — kwami (talk) 07:31, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I thought of that, and while the en dash is correct in some instances, in the two examples above the hyphen instead should be the correct character. E.g. the usage is "(Uralic-Yukaghir) languages" (hyphenated, indicating Uralic and Yukaghir combined) and not "Uralic–(Yukaghir languages)" (dashed, indicating a Uralic [Uralization] prefix to Yukaghir), as opposed to "Trans–([New Guinea] languages)" (dashed) instead of "(Trans-New) (Guinea languages)" (hyphenated). Nicole Sharp (talk) 08:02, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There are two primary motivations for using an en dash in names like this. One is as you describe: Post–Cold War [i.e., post-(cold war) as opposed to (post-cold) war]. The other is when joining two equivalent elements into a unit, as in "French–German border". Many language families fit the latter pattern (e.g. Niger–Congo but not Nilo-Saharan, where the two elements are not equivalent grammatically). There was a discussion about this a couple years ago, with examples of professional publications that follow such usage. — kwami (talk) 08:12, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Please also see the discussion at "Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Improper moves by User:Nicole_Sharp." I would be willing to defer to your judgment in the matter, but if you can post a link with a citation, or if you know of a journal that follows such usage that I could look up at my university library, I would feel a lot better. However, I would still argue that the bigger problem is technical as opposed to grammatical, since the dash is a non-US-ASCII special character. The same problem exists with curly quotes versus straight quotes, since curly quotes are special characters and so cannot always be identified as quotes/apostrophes. Wikipedia is more than just a website—since it is free and open-source, it can be archived and redistributed in a wide variety of formats, which can create technical complications if there is an unnecessary overuse of special characters. Nicole Sharp (talk) 08:53, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Don't recall offhand, and out of town. But you bring up a larger issue re. restricting ourselves to ASCII characters. In general we don't do that. True, we don't use curly quotes, but there's no semantic difference involved (except for things like the okina, where we do use the curly variant, and hamza vs 'ayn etc.). There is a semantic difference between the hyphen and the en dash, and per your argument we should use e.g. "---" rather than "—" in our articles. But we don't: There is no general preference for ASCII on WP. There is an interminable argument about using diacritics in people's names, but that's more an issue of being true to the original vs reflecting English-language media than about ASCII. — kwami (talk) 10:11, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Either way, the most important thing I think is consistency. I would suggest creating an official list of all language-family names that should use the en dash, and then programming a bot to go through Wikipedia with a find-and-replace for any instances using the hyphen instead. I have no idea how wikibots work, so this would have to be a task for someone more technically skilled than myself. I have seen both characters in use on pages, and not all search engines can tell the difference between the two spellings (dash versus hyphen). Nicole Sharp (talk) 20:14, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have been thinking, and I still think the en dash is not correct in instances such as "Eskimo-Aleut." For example, "Antigua-Barbuda" (hyphenated) is a shortened name for the country of Antigua and Barbuda, which consists of the islands of Antigua and Barbuda. "Antigua–Barbuda" (dashed) would refer to relations between the two islands, which are both located within the same country of Antigua-Barbuda (hyphenated). Likewise, "Eskimo–Aleut" (dashed) should refer to relations between (contemporary/historical) Inuit-speaking (Eskimo-speaking) peoples and Aleut-speaking peoples, and not the (theoretical/prehistorical) unified language group of Eskimo-Aleut (e.g. Proto-Eskimo-Aleut). "Niger–Congo" (dashed) versus "Niger-Congo" (hyphenated) doesn't have the same possibility of confusion since the name refers not to specific language subgroups but to the general area between and around the Niger and Congo Rivers. I would say that the en dash in these cases implies an apposition or opposition of entities (e.g. between them), whereas the hyphen implies a superposition of entities (a combination into a new unified entity). Nicole Sharp (talk) 00:24, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwami, what do you think about these changes made? [4][5][6] Do you think that the new references brought in merit for all the previous references/content to be deleted? Bests - LouisAragon (talk) 03:35, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Before I forget; if we were to give a transliteration of the name Orontes I for the lede of the very same article, would it be, according to Schmitt (2002);
"Orontes I (Ancient Greek: Oróntēs, Aroandēs, from "Old Persian: *Arvanta) was a (...)"
What do you think? Bests - LouisAragon (talk) 05:53, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Especially with this edit, Nanshu is making sweeping changes to deRyukyuanize a huge number of articles, removes sourced statements that don't support his POV, inserting his own romanizations, and removing the word "Ryukyu" in its entirety. I am going to revert most-if-not-all of it, and will probably have to bring it to ANI. I'm just letting you know since you were involved with a lot of the Ryukyuan language articles. ミーラー強斗武 (StG88ぬ会話) 02:46, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I just spent some time on this very impressive page and cannot discover why it is tagged as having the same name for different references. I can no longer find the references that are in question but that is another issue. It does look like there are two references in each citation and that is when I decided to try and go to the original editor.
I notice that you did a bit of editing on the date that these references were accessed (July 12, 2012), so I am hoping that you might have some insight.
I would welcome any input from an editor of your experience. Thank youBobdog54 (talk) 18:56, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just a repeated ref, but w the formatting different enough that our bots couldn't fix it. — kwami (talk) 03:55, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwami. Not sure if you want to get into this but there are move requests at Saraiki dialect, Pothohari dialect and Hindko dialect that are, at best, confusing. Just wondering if you have an informed opinion. Thanks. --regentspark (comment) 01:41, 1 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Despite nearly 10 Wikipedians not agreeing with his views on talk pages of effected Talk pages.
He cherry picks and tries to define dialects in to Language.
Wikipedia is not a dictionary.
Wikipedians can not cherry pick.
Wikipedians can not impose a point a view.
Wikipedians move with consensus.
Wikipedia is an informational project. It can not misguide about language hierarchy.
Only standardisation of few dialects can not make them language. However few follow this rule for defining Hindko Saraiki Potwari as language. He cherry pick those.
Even those "few" along with "opposite others" have details whether "Explicit" or "Implicit" which demonstrate a common hierarchy Language Family: Indo European, Branch: Indo Iranian, Sub branch: Indo Aryan, Macro Language: Punjabi, Language: Western Punjabi, Dialects: Potwari Hindko Saraiki and many others, Sub dialects: North Hindko South Hindko.
All such linguistic sources are mentioned / added by many wikipedians.
If we accept Uanfala version of "cherry pick" and "Defining" then we will end up with a dilemma mentioned by User Flipro on this move request for 30 odd Punjabi dialects [12].
Time to report User Uanfala for topic ban for Cherry picking, Forum shoping, Edit warring, ignoring talk page consensus on western punjabi diffrent dialect talk pages. Please you being a registered senior editor start the proceeding for Topic Ban and violation of 3Rs. 39.60.232.41 (talk) 01:34, 2 November 2016 (UTC)₯€₠€₯[reply]
The above message was also posted on the talk pages of several other users, and it has already received responses on Andy Wang's and on Paine Ellsworth's. – Uanfala (talk) 10:09, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, the Burun languages on Wikipedia are classified as their own group within Nilotic. This is from Blench's (2012) proposed classification of Nilo-Saharan. As of 2016, Glottolog (2.7) puts them in Burun-Luo and Ethnologue (19) still maintains the older internal Luo classification. Since Blench, a lot linguists more specialised in Western Nilotic, including Torben Andersen who helped describe most of them, have maintained the Western Nilotic classification. (On a personal level, I think it may just be a graphical error on Blench's part. If you study the languages, it's clearly a very strange conclusion to jump to.) You seem to be the authority here, and having created the articles in the first place, I wanted to run it down with you first before I edit the individual language articles. -- Lestadii27 (talk) 16:17, 27 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Please, go ahead and fix per the current lit. Just recap in the edit summary and maybe mention this on the article talk page so a year from now I don't forget this conversation and undo your changes.
Also, could you add a link to Burun in the first superior node in the classification that has an article, and remove it from where it's currently listed? Ideally, people should be able to find all language articles by browsing their family trees. (That is, you'd want to fix Nilotic, W.Nilotic, Burun, NBurun & SBurun -- info boxes for all of those, plus the subdivisions under Nilotic and the lang list under WNil. Also Template:Eastern Sudanic languages. Sorry if I'm being obvious, but people often overlook articles related to the ones they change so we end up contradicting ourselves.)
I wouldn't pay any attention to Ethnologue. We don't know where their classifications come from, and many are unreliable (though that's slowly being corrected). With Glottolog, you can check if your sources are more recent or more reliable and chose whichever you think best.
That's good, I'll get round to it. I did get your message, I just put the task off for a little. -- Lestadii27 (talk) 01:37, 8 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello there, if you could not call contributions that you remove "BS" here that'd be great. @Yamla:.
BTW how was your holiday Yamla? See you soon 94.193.111.99 (talk) 23:25, 2 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mean "BS" as an insult, but as a specific description. (See bullshit.) And, as far as I can tell, much of that contribution is bullshit. I may be wrong, but if so I'm wrong no matter which euphemism I might use. — kwami (talk) 03:49, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oh the "good kind of BS", like if I were to scream "Ya cunt" at you but in an Australian way? 94.193.111.99 (talk) 20:22, 8 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No idea what that means in Strine, so can't answer that. But I'm not fond of euphemisms. — kwami (talk) 01:47, 9 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, including multiple authors in Daniels & Bright. I believe it's the standard term. (Though the point of script vs orthography should be reviewed.) — kwami (talk) 00:00, 8 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Without looking at the references but looking at the talk page, I can't reconcile the fact this term is more of an opinion than a solid theory or characteristic.68.150.86.232 (talk) 05:03, 8 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Which talk page?
I don't see how it's a matter of opinion. A script that does not have a way of writing vowels is a defective script. The (classical) Greek alphabet was defective because it had no way of representing all the vowels of classical Greek. So is a script designed for a language that has phonemic aspiration but that does not have a way of indicating aspiration. Sometimes defectiveness may be remedied with digraphs, diacritics, etc., which is where we get into defective orthographies vs defective scripts. — kwami (talk) 01:53, 9 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwani
I wanted to repoint the articles in English and Portuguese, such that Upper Guinea Creole links to Crioulos da Alta Guiné and not to Crioulo da Guiné-Bissau. However I then saw that in en_WP there is only one article, titled "Upper Guinea Creole", but which is in fact about "Guinea-Bissau Creole". Then to make matters worse, I see here that they treat the two names as interchangeable.
"Upper Guinea Creole(*S*)" is the family, which includes "Guinea-Bissau Creole" and Cape Verdean Creole. The infobox on both pages already say this. Right now Upper Guinea Creole describes only "Guinea-Bissau Creole", saying that it is "closely related to Cape Verdean creole".
My thinking is to move Upper Guinea Creole to "Guinea-Bissau Creole", and redict Guinea-Bissau Creole language to "Guinea-Bissau Creole". That part I can do. However, we then need an article on "Upper Guinea CreoleS" (plural) and a fix on the wikidata page, which I am not familiar with. Your thoughts, please. Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 12:51, 14 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like it might be best to turn the UGC page into a dab for both CVC and GBC, if it's true that the term is ambiguous. As for the family, we don't need a separate article if there isn't much to write. We can cover that info in our article on Portuguese creoles. It's a judgement call, depending on what you think would be most accessible and helpful to our readers. If you do create an article for the fam, the UCG page would presumably redirect to it.
The easiest way to create an article is to make a red link on a page, click on it, and start editing where it takes you. Or, if you don't have permission to do that and agree that the UGC page should be a rd to the family article, then after you move it to GBC (retaining the article history under the new name and leaving a rd), you can move the rd to the name for the family and then edit it into an appropriate article. If that doesn't work, ask and I or someone watching this page can start the new article for you.
Hi. Actually, that (a dab page and Rds) is a much simpler immediate solution. Let's see if I can re-point things in the right direction. Thanks.
The only hurdle is to clear "Guinea-Bissau Creole" to make way for "Upper Guinea Creole". Do you have user rights to do that? Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 00:58, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Tagged it for deletion. Should happen within a day or two. — kwami (talk) 01:05, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Rui Gabriel Correia: You should comment on the GBC talk page where that should go, since it's got stuff on it and so maybe shouldn't be simply replaced by the main article talk page. An admin might not delete the rd if they don't know what to do w the talk page. — kwami (talk) 01:12, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Someone I know I can count on to clear the the rubble for others to be able to do their bit. May your spade never be blunt! Much appreciated. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 01:28, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwamikagami, I've restored the redirect Guinea-Bissau Creole for now. There is a requested move at Talk:Upper Guinea Creole that closed as "not moved" in 2015. Unless circumstances have changed, a db-move request is not completely uncontroversial. I recommend a full WP:RM discussion, i.e. {{subst:requested move|Guinea-Bissau Creole|reason=that article is about this topic; that name should be a rd to the family since it includes Cabo Verde Creole}} on the talk. Hope that makes sense; cheers — Andy W. (talk) 02:01, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Followed up at my talk — Andy W. (talk) 02:17, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Any idea if this is genuine [13]? I have my doubts about the new editor who added this, can't seem to find any mention of Phupha language using a Cyrillic script (although there's very little info point blank, perhaps not surprising) and it seems a bit weird Jan Gebauer would somehow be involved. 17:57, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
Just vandalism. The other changes are BS too. — kwami (talk) 20:59, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Ysolo. Since you had some involvement with the Ysolo redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. —Mark Dominus (talk) 14:52, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Back in 2010, you added a bit on the tone classes of Zulu nouns at Zulu grammar, which is still in the article more or less unchanged. I'm having a bit of trouble interpreting your description of the different classes. I've been reading Cope's Zulu Tonal Morphology and it seems like your description of the HL class (Cope's class IV) doesn't fit. Specifically, Cope gives this example of extension of a noun and the resulting tone pattern: bàfánà > bàfányànà > bàfànyányànà. Your edit stated "high on stressed syllable of longer words, followed by low", but should this be the antepenultimate syllable (syllable before the stress) instead? Cope's example seems to suggest so.
In the LHL class, there similarly seems to be a problem since the description "high on syllable after the stressed syllable in longer words" seems to imply that only the final syllable is low, whereas it's actually LH > LHL > LHLL in Cope, so the high is one syllable further from the end each time a syllable is added. It is not clear to me if a hypothetical 5-syllable stem would be LHLLL or LLHLL.
The description of the HHL class (Cope's class III) also seems off. Cope gives the sequence ísíkhwámá > ísíkhwànyánà, which would fit your description if it instead said simply "high on stressed syllable, followed by low". There's only ever one syllable after the stressed one, after all. The plural of this noun puzzles me in Cope's description, since it's ízìkhwàmá, with a missing high tone on the third syllable. Do you have any idea why this might be? CodeCat (talk) 22:10, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Sorry, I no longer have my source for that. I could have gotten it wrong. (I don't remember it being a very precise description, though my memory is vague.) So please correct if you like. Sorry, can't answer your question, though it's not uncommon to encounter typos in tone transcriptions. — kwami (talk) 03:57, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What do you think of the current article? It's a lot more elaborate at least. CodeCat (talk) 16:33, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Please visit dispute resolution notice board and participate a debate on saraiki dialect of Punjabi language which is poorly written by Uanfala as a separate language contradictory to RFC decision. AksheKumar (talk) 05:57, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi,
A while back, you wrote most of our article on "Sinhala Braille". I'm looking for sources about the creator(s) of that system and the article doesn't have much in the way of sources about that history, reliable or otherwise. Do you have any sources on that (in English or otherwise) that cite who the creator(s) were? Thanks! Hobit (talk) 17:48, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, no. I tried to include such info when I created the articles. What's there is all I could find. — kwami (talk) 23:00, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If you're new to the process, articles for deletion is a group discussion (not a vote!) that usually lasts seven days. If you need it, there is a guide on how to contribute. Last but not least, you are highly encouraged to continue improving the article; just be sure not to remove the tag about the deletion nomination from the top.
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:1829 braille.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. ~ Rob13Talk 20:13, 21 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This article does not mention a single source even though an unreferenced flag has been added more than three years ago. It is likely that there are no sources for many of the pronunciations in this article. Seeing as there are abundant Category:Lists of asteroids, nothing is lost when this article is deleted. --mach🙈🙉🙊 11:50, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
This article does not mention a single source even though unreferenced and OR flags have been added more than six years ago. It is likely that there are no sources for many of the pronunciations in this article. Seeing as there are abundant Category:Lists of asteroids, nothing is lost when this article is deleted. --mach🙈🙉🙊 11:48, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
Hi! I'm a linguist working on african and polynesian languages, and lingwiki. I'm also involved in glottolog and other things. I just wanted to say thanks, I see what you do and it is good. Especially appreciate the exclusive economic zone map of the pacific.
So, are you a linguist at a university somewhere?
ATTENTION: This is an automated, bot-generated message. This bot DID NOT nominate any file(s) for deletion; please refer to the page history of each individual file for details. Thanks, FastilyBot (talk) 23:50, 19 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
A page you started (Nambya language) has been reviewed![edit]
User:BU Rob13: I assume this message was automated because Kwamikagamicreated this article 5 years ago! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:42, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@MSGJ: Interesting bug in the page curation script. It was just recently converted from redirect to article, but the script thanks the creator not the actual person who made the new article. Weird. ~ Rob13Talk 15:55, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You may be interested in Wikitongues (https://wikitongues.org). "Wikitongues founders and directors Daniel Bogre Udell and Frederico Andrade have embraced an ambitious mission to document — and teach — every language in the world."
Hi Kwami. Surely if a language is official, it has to be so de jure, not so? And if anything is de facto, it therefore is so in practice but not in law, right? Locate "German is official language (de jure or de facto)" in German language. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 14:19, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think they mean situations like the USA, where English is not officially official, but is the official language for all practical purposes. — kwami (talk) 20:48, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I object to that phrasing. The United States has no official language, and doesn't need one. English is the overwhelming majority language, and the language in which most government functions are conducted, but not the official language. --Trovatore (talk) 21:03, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No. They mean the same thing. "Zero" is more common, but some people prefer "null". Of course, there's the theoretical issue of whether there actually is a zero prefix. Does English "cat" have a singular suffix that is null, or is the word simply understood to be singular unless it has the plural suffix -s? If you don't believe in such things, you can say that those noun classes don't have a prefix. — kwami (talk) 19:47, 15 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"Kazakhstan's 76-year-old authoritarian President Nursultan Nazarbayev" ... "on April 12" ... "ordered authorities to begin preparing for the switch from the Cyrillic alphabet to a Latin based script".
Hi, in 2013 you created articles, Praenestinian language and Lanuvian language. Unfortunately, both are essentially sub-stubs, which carry no information that can't be found in Latino-Faliscan languages. The fact that you created them anyway suggests that you know in fact more about them. Maybe you planned to expand them later. If so, could you tell us more about these Old Latin dialects? Steinbach (talk) 16:57, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I don't. I created them so that all ISO language codes would redirect to an article that identified the language associated with the code. These codes were assigned by LingList and are in the private code range. AFAIK LingList is the only org that uses private ISO language codes, so I made sure all of theirs direct to an article as well. (The tables could be moved to the family article, but would be rather ugly and distracting, and not an improvement to the article. I thought them better as separate stubs.)
LingList is not a RS. However, it is very commonly used and cited, so IMO it's reasonable to support them on WP as a 2ary source. (I would think that on WP, common use in the community would trump my judgement that LL is a junk ref.)
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Haitian Standard French. Since you had some involvement with the Haitian Standard French redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Savvyjack23 (talk) 22:27, 17 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Help requested with temple naming "conventions"[edit]
Hi
I notice that you closed Talk:Padmavathi Temple, Tiruchanur#Requested move 21 July 2015 with a comment Whether to remove the location is a different discussion, as there is not enough input here to decide. I note that Padmavathi Temple is currently a redlink. There seems to be no reason for the geographical disambiguation, and I am at a loss to understand why it is there.
In both the discussion you closed and the current discussion there has been reference to a naming convention, but this does not appear to exist in English Wikipedia. I suspect that many (perhaps even all) of the main contributors to these articles have English as a second language, and that they are more familiar with procedures and conventions in another Wikipedia, and are applying those in English Wikipedia. If so, this must stop.
Your help would be greatly appreciated. Andrewa (talk) 16:37, 21 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Tai Then language. Since you had some involvement with the Tai Then language redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. RJFF (talk) 21:37, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for creating African language articles[edit]
Just wanted to thank you for creating the Wikipedia articles for practically every African language and family over these years. I've been going through the major African family/subfamily articles, making vector maps where they have been missing and easing article comprehensibility. I've made it my mission to ease the understanding of African languages and families. It was through this that I noticed you had created almost every article I was editing. All I have to say is, really great work on your massive contributions to Wikipedia. It's greatly appreciated. SpikeballUnion (talk) 04:09, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Asking for your input on 'Angolan Portuguese dialects' at WP:NO[edit]
Hi Kwami. If you have some time, your input would be appreciated here. Thank you. Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 23:29, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If I see the page history correctly, looks like you have semi-protected and move-protected Wikipedia:IPA for Hawaiian (now moved to Help:IPA/Hawaiian) right after you created it as "Highly visible template". Was this some kind of mistake? If so I think it should be unprotected. Nardog (talk) 05:09, 6 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
We routinely semi-protect(ed) IPA templates. — kwami (talk) 06:42, 6 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There are four Eastern Sudanic subclassifications. Bender 2000, Ehret 1984/2001, Starostin 2016 and Rilly 2008. I know Dimmendaal has one too but it's unpublished as far as I know. None of the proposed classifications are argued for using the historical-comparative method (regular sound changes, known sound laws and a corpus of proto-forms w/ reflexes) which is why there's no standard classification as is the case with the demonstrated, now stable, subgroups such as Daju and Nilotic.
I've changed the wikipedia nomenclature which has an Ehret and Bender bias to something that better reflects the modern state of research. Bender's classification is still the most influential of the four (see ethnologue) but Ehret's is not so. -- Lestadii27 (talk) 19:50, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Ehret's not a RS, but I thought his names might be useful. Not if no-one uses them, though. — kwami (talk) 20:26, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, I looked on the edit history page of the Tasmanian languages, and I see that you added the phonology back in 2012, however; as of today it says information on the vowels that there were "five short" and "five long". Do you happen to still have the source you got the consonants from? It said "Schmidt 1952". What were the five long and short vowel sounds/phonemes/phonetic symbols that were listed in the source? Also does there exist a separate "y" sound in the languages? Another thing you stated was that the languages were the East-central and the South-east Tasmanian languages, could that also partially include the North-eastern language as well? Please let me know. Thanks. Fdomanico51997 (talk) 04:06, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
File:Alfabet palcowy2.jpg listed for discussion[edit]
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Alfabet palcowy2.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 17:27, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwami. I see you're semi-retired, not a particularly good thing for Wikipedia (though likely good for you!). If you do see this, I was wondering what your opinion is on Ethnologue as a source. The relevant discussion is at Talk:Balti_language#Devanagri_Script where Ethnologue is described as a reliable source and language authority used throughout Wikipedia. Regardless of all this, I hope your off-wiki life is going well and best wishes. --regentspark (comment) 03:42, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'd second the comment as I saw your input on some talk page. I came here asking for you opinion on an issue in an area which you edit, but was disappointed by the notification. Would still welcome you input any time.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 04:21, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, I was studying changes to SVG image (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DecimalSeparator.svg), and found that you had changed that image to show that in Croatia decimal mark in use is period (.).
Although the whole image is commented as "dubious", I'd like to correct it.
The image is used in article about decimal mark, where it is stated that this decimal mark is comma.
Do you have any sources or references stating that decimal mark in Croatia is period? They probably exist, so I'd like to review them.
In favor of comma is Croatian norm HRN ISO 31-0:1996 (Veličine i jedinice - 0. dio: Opća načela, i.e. Quantities and units, Part 0, General principles).
Many thanks! DarkoS (talk) 07:39, 19 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Go ahead. I don't recall where I got that info, and in any case your source is probably more reliable than mine was. — kwami (talk) 16:48, 19 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Kwamikagami. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
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I have no idea how to do am image look-up on the wiki to see if something is already uploaded. Before I go to the trouble, could I have your opinion on this map 1, 2? Thanks. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 23:05, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Rui Gabriel Correia: Sure. I wonder if the areas aren't a bit exaggerated, but it doesn't look too bad. But the colors are random and they should mean something, IMO preferably language family. (E.g. G|ui is a dialect of G||ana, but they're different colors, while Hai||om and N|u are in different language families, but are the same color.) Also, it looks like "=Hoa" is covering two different languages, from two different language families. — kwami (talk) 01:52, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Should MoS shortcut redirects be sorted to certain specific maintenance categories? An Rfc has been opened on this talk page to answer that question. If this interests you and you should decide to semi-unretire for a bit, your sentiments would be appreciated!Paine Ellsworthput'r there 17:16, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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Hello. I know you're semi-retired, but I was wondering if you could help me with something quick. I just stumbled on a redirect you created, Hualfin language. It points to Cacán language, which doesn't mention the term, but a Google search turns up nothing of use. Usually I would take something like this straight to RfD, but I realize you're something of an expert on languages, so I thought I would ask you first what the reasoning is behind the redirect. Thanks.— PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 15:19, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It was the name in some old source I was working with, not common enough these days to mention in the article. Languages can have dozens of names, and while we could create a section for all those alt names (sometimes the names of villages where the language is spoken), that looks rather silly if the rest of the article is a stub. But if someone comes across that old source and wonders what "Hualfin" is, it would be nice if WP could direct them to the correct article. — kwami (talk) 21:18, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Perfect. I didn't know about that template. I've created lots of rd's like this, maybe hundreds, but all years ago. — kwami (talk) 02:18, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nomination for deletion of Template:Ngayarta[edit]
"Former countries" infobox added to prehistoric Florida ethnic groups and village sites[edit]
Since you have edited a number of these articles in the past, whats your opinion on adding the infobox for "former countries" to ethnic, tribal and village organizations in the late prehistoric, protohistoric and early historic Florida and southeastern region? Another editor has begun adding the infobox (which I disagree with) to a number of these articles, sometimes removing and replacing other infoboxes in the process. ( see Tacatacururevision history, Uzita (Florida), Pohoy , Tocobaga). The editor, User:Mangokeylime, seems to have a thing for infoboxes. Per our recent interactions (User:Mangokeylime#Mound Builders box and Talk:Mississippian culture#Mound Builders navbox) I'd rather have some neutral parties knowledgeable of the subjects to weigh in rather than me jumping in unilaterally on this issue. Thanks, and kind regards, Heiro 03:20, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"Country" has a rather amorphous definition. Tribes and nations are not in and of themselves "countries", at least as far as I understand the term. But as for most ambiguous things here on WP, the question should be whether defining the term to include tribes and nations is useful to our readers, and whether we'd be able to be consistent in using the word that way across our articles. In this case, I doubt it is or that we would, but that's something the proposer should make a convincing argument for.
Maybe a nation>tribe>clan info box for such articles? But we'd need evidence the group/village/whatever actually is a nation/tribe/clan.
I think it would be a better use of time to reduce our use of the word "tribe" to a consistent definition (e.g., as a unit of social/governmental organization between the clan and the nation, for people that are organized tribally at all (as the word is used e.g. in the National Museum of Ghana), rather than a substitute for "nation"/"ethnic group" for people our culture considers primitive -- and also capital-T "Tribe" for "Tribal" governments in the USA, which generally have nothing to do with actual tribes).
Agreed. For the purposes of these articles though, do you think the information fields in that specific template fits those articles? The fields are tailored to what seems to me are current definitions of modern nation states as "countries" and not the more amorphous entities you describe, which is exactly my problem with using it in these instances. I do not want to come across as displaying WP:OWN tendencies with these articles (or be WP:BITEy with what seems like a newer editor by unilaterally reverting all their edits) and I have a recent history with this user about another infobox that had a similar issue (in that it did not fit the articles it was being added to adequately). I've asked you and few other regular editors of that subject matter to weigh in in an attempt to show them that it isn't just me attacking everything they do. Heiro 04:50, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe the info box could be modified to better fit the requirements for such polities? I like the idea of treating all polities with the degree of respect that such a template implies -- articles look more serious, somehow, with a template. Especially for obscure polities we know little about, and so can't write much about, a template makes it look like we're taking them seriously or that they deserve to be taken seriously.
There could be a problem with forcing a polity to fit the categories assumed by the template, but that shouldn't be too hard to overcome (ha!) with a bit of discussion on the template talk page. Using the template might have a beneficial side-effect: by forcing editors to formally label the kind of polity it is so prominently, we might be less sloppy with how we use words like 'tribe' and 'chief'. (Though it will be difficult to extend consistency to the walled garden of Somalia, where editors insist on following the convention that tribes are "clans" and clans are "sub-clans".) Since we're talking about permanent settlements, we wouldn't need to worry about tribe vs band, but other characteristics might be clarified and the wording cleaned up if editors are forced to label them. — kwami (talk) 06:19, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Languages of A Song of Ice and Fire until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. The Verified Cactus100% 22:11, 27 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Please take a look at Talk:Latin grammar. A user has added a lot about conjugations which seem to me completely redundant with the material we already have on Latin conjugations. --Macrakis (talk) 18:05, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwami, the original source didn't have it. So we have to leave it like that. Presumably it would have been [21]. — Stevey7788 (talk) 11:18, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed that you have been deleting Ethnologue speaker numbers for !Kung languages. I completely understand that you feel that Ethnologue sources are not reliable for the !Kung languages, but Ethnologue uses Brenzinger's data in their work. However, even Ethnologue sources still use reliable data. For example, the current page for Ekoka !Kung on Ethnologue has data from Brenzinger and another linguist from 2016. However, I have not been able to use the readymade templates for that yet. Ethnologue is a scientific publication that has to have accurate data, is much more accurate than most other sources, and is even cited by other linguists in their work. Therefore, don't discredit the sources of Ethnologue, since it is trusted by many linguists to provide demographic data on languages. C1MM (talk) 19:50, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that they apply Brenzinger's figures to the wrong languages. We should go off a source directly if we can, and not rely on an intermediate source that can be the source of errors. — kwami (talk) 00:55, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
They should go to the same place IMO, and 'controversy' is a closer equivalent than 'coverage'. If they go different places because of what links to them, we can fix that, and linked text shouldn't usually be capitalized anyway. — kwami (talk) 18:50, 12 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Done. Might RfD if I feel like it later, the triple caps is weird. ~ Amory(u • t • c) 19:11, 12 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There will be some changes to the way wikitext is parsed during the next few weeks. It will affect all namespaces. You can see a list of pages that may display incorrectly at Special:LintErrors. Since most of the easy problems have already been solved at the English Wikipedia, I am specifically contacting tech-savvy editors such as yourself with this one-time message, in the hope that you will be able to investigate the remaining high-priority pages during the next month.
There are approximately 10,000 articles (and many more non-article pages) with high-priority errors. The most important ones are the articles with misnested tags and table problems. Some of these involve templates, such as infoboxes, or the way the template is used in the article. In some cases, the "error" is a minor, unimportant difference in the visual appearance. In other cases, the results are undesirable. You can see a before-and-after comparison of any article by adding ?action=parsermigration-edit to the end of a link, like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Foss?action=parsermigration-edit (which shows a difference in how {{infobox ship}} is parsed).
Yeah, Glottolog and your fixes were correct, but even so, after you deleted the errors there was less info than in the main article, so there was no point in keeping it. It may be worth creating separate articles on these varieties at some point, when someone adds additional info that would be too much detail for the main Malagasy article and it would read better to have them split off. I don't know to what extent these are actually distinct languages, as opposed to dialects whose speakers want there own literature -- that's what many ISO codes are based on, and Glottolog follows ISO unless they come across something that indicates that ISO is wrong. — kwami (talk) 19:09, 26 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Kwamikagami, back in 2012, when you edited Romic alphabet, you added two maintenance tags after “which had the pronunciations they retain in the IPA”. As often happens in such cases, nothing happened since. In this case, this may have to do with the fact that the tag is at a place where the problem “these may have been used earlier” is least conspicuous. The most explicit claim of first use is in the sentence before, referring to ⟨ɔ⟩. The sentence you marked implicitly makes such a claim about ⟨æ⟩ and ⟨ð⟩ through the word “resurrected”, but the word “borrowed”, used for ⟨θ⟩, makes no such claim, as it allows for others to have borrowed the letter before. Would it suffice to change the first sentence? Or, if you were particularly concerned about the second sentence, would it be an acceptable compromise to use “borrowed” for all so that we can get rid of the maintenance tags? (For me, this would be a compromise because I like the colorful word “resurrected” here.) ◄ Sebastian 02:00, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the wording of the first sentence is quite confusing. If ⟨ɔ⟩ acquired its modern pronunciation then, then it was presumably used earlier with a different pronunciation. But we also say it acquired its first use then. It makes no sense to say both. — Kwamikagami 14:37, 3 May 2018 (UTC) — continues after insertion below[reply]
use of ɔ as a siglum for “con” (left page, second to last line)
There was indeed prior use - first as a Roman numeral, then possibly as one of the Claudian letters, and later as a siglum for “con”. Maybe we could write that instead, or simply delete the sentence altogether, since it also breaks the connection from the antecedent “Sweet” to “He”. ◄ Sebastian 16:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fine with "resurrected" and "borrowed". But both clearly imply that the letters came directly from Old English and Greek, not by way of some earlier phonetic alphabet. If there was earlier phonetic usage, it would have had to have been unknown to Ellis or Sweet. We need some RS that Ellis or Sweet introduced all four of these letters (including ɔ) into modern phonetic usage. — kwami (talk) 14:37, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the crux of the matter is that no one has been able to find a reference that explicitly states those meanings. Given that that's the case, I don't understand how you can be “fine with "resurrected" and "borrowed"”. As for "borrowed", I agree that it is often used to mean that someone is the first one to borrow it, but I respectfully disagree that it “clearly” implies that no one else can have borrowed it before. Yet, I don't think we have to solve the question of priority here; for me it would sufice to weaken the statement with a word like "apparently". But maybe you have a better wording; I will leave that in your able hands. ◄ Sebastian 16:46, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The blocked sock @DerekWinters: split off a lot of language articles into sub-articles, leaving identifying details of the sources behind so that you might just see a surname and year as the source. I don't have the time to fix it and don't know where to report it. Maybe you'd be interested or know who else to ask? Doug Wellertalk 15:56, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to start at WP:ANI. But they don't necessarily look like bad edits, at least in principle. And given that there have been 3 years of people making improvements to the articles since then, it would probably be a bad idea to do a blanket revert. So, it's probably going to be a question of someone being willing to take the time to either re-integrate everything, or cleaning things up where they stand. And someone confident enough to evaluate the articles might feel they have better things to do, since I don't see any vandalism or fringe claims. — kwami (talk) 06:41, 24 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Tone sticks [or: Don't use IPA for SE Asian languages][edit]
Hi Kwami,
Chao tones are the accepted convention among Southeast Asian linguists, including Paul Sidwell and Jerold Edmondson. They all have to painstakingly convert the tone sticks back into Chao tones when they use these Wiki articles. This limits the usability of the articles, and frustrates the main audience. Some of these scholars have personally complained to me about it.
On Wikipedia, articles on African languages also use slightly different transcription conventions.
We know that Chao tones are not "100% standard IPA," but anyone who delves into Southeast Asian linguistics will know what Chao tones are. They're like the ABC's of Southeast Asian linguistics. Everyone uses them for their precision and non-ambiguity. In this field, tone sticks are outdated and not well received. Only very old-fashioned Sinologists will use them nowadays.
I have not reverted any of your edits yet. Please discuss this issue with the Wiki community in order to reach a consensus. And if in further doubt, please contact the SE Asian linguistics experts in real life.
The problem with pitch numbers isn't that they aren't "100% IPA". They aren't IPA at all, and pace your claim of "precision and non-ambiguity", they are utterly ambiguous to a global audience, such as the one we serve here at Wikipedia, and are certainly no more precise than the IPA. Also, the local African convention isn't "slightly different", it's the exact opposite, and is equally to be avoided. I've seen the following pitch numbers used for high tone: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 – and that's not counting tone numbers. (And I'm sure someone uses '2' for high tone somewhere.) Yes, people within the walled garden of SE Asia will understand that '5' is supposed to be 'high' and '1' is supposed to be 'low', but in general those outside that clique will not, and we target a general audience. Even within the walls, there's a possibility of confusing pitch numbers with tone numbers. Personally, I tend to forget which convention is which – if 1 is high or low for a particular country or language family. If we just accept international usage and use the IPA, that isn't a problem. In fact, avoiding such ambiguity is the entire reason for the IPA – an international rather than local standard. And yes, while SEAsianists may use their local conventions in specialized journals, when writing to a broader audience (say with a paper on phonetics in an international journal) they often use IPA (at least, that's what I've seen). Insisting on local conventions for SE Asian languages would be like insisting on Americanist notation for American languages, with e.g. ⟨y⟩ for [j]. Many of our sources do use Americanist notation, actually, but we convert them to IPA for Wikipedia. Users of all other local conventions, such as for Uralic languages, are expected to do the same. And it's hardly a hardship for them. And, really, do you want to have to decipher the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet if for some reason you need to check out a Uralic language on Wikipedia? Far easier for the writer of the article to convert the source material to IPA for you.
You say, "They all have to painstakingly convert the tone sticks back into Chao tones when they use these Wiki articles". I wonder, why would any linguist copy Wikipedia articles? We target a general audience, and I would think linguists might use us to *find* sources (much as they might use Ethnologue or Glottolog), but would then rely directly on the sources themselves. But, even if a professional linguist were relying on Wikipedia for their data, the conversion is hardly "painstaking". Running find and replace five times (for the five IPA tone letters) will take care of an entire document in a few seconds. A macro you can write in a couple minutes will do it in half a second, and will handle an unlimited number of documents. And it's not like WP contains much language data anyway. If it did, it would be better moved to Wiktionary, Wikibooks or some other forum.
You ask me to "Please discuss this issue with the Wiki community in order to reach a consensus." But we already *have* consensus, WP:PRON, and that is to use the IPA. National and local conventions can also be used, but in a secondary role, just as you can use US dictionary conventions for English, but only in addition to the IPA. You can't say, "this article is about America, so we have to use Webster notation to the exclusion of the IPA" when no-one else in the world is going to be able to read it.
If you want to change the well-established consensus here on WP, then it's up to you to start the discussion and convince the rest of us that we should abandon the IPA for SE Asian articles. — kwami (talk) 20:18, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
We should have the other SE Asian linguistics editors pitch in and discuss this. I'll see if I can start a discussion. — Stevey7788 (talk) 21:19, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It can't just be SEAsianists. That would be like getting a bunch of Americans together and deciding that WP should use Imperial units. And what if WAfricanists then convened a discussion and decided WP should use pitch numbers with the opposite values? Consensus among a clique, assuming we get it, would still not override the consensus of the wider community. — kwami (talk) 21:31, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And just a note that when converting ȵ, please convert it to ɲ and not nʲ. Sinologists and SE Asianists always use it to refer to ɲ. When describing the same language (e.g., Hani in Yunnan), Chinese linguists will use ȵ while Japanese linguists will use ɲ. I would agree on converting this one. — Stevey7788 (talk) 21:27, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good to me. (Actually, ⟨ɲ⟩ is frequently used for [n̠ʲ], but that's a minor phonetic issue that won't be clarified by most sources and would be WP:OR for us to do so.) — kwami (talk) 21:35, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker) Won't it be possible to wrap the tone symbols in a template that will output them in either standard IPA or in tone numbers depending on a user setting? This way, one of the display options will be the default, and only logged-in users will be able to opt for the other one. – Uanfala (talk) 10:28, 27 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose. We could let users choose whether ˥ is converted to 1 or 5, ˩ to 5 or 1, though there might conceivably be people who would want them converted according to other local conventions. But it's so language-specific (whether ˥ is 3 or 4, for example), not just region-specific, that I suspect it would quickly become unworkable. Maybe we could make it specifically a SEAsian template. We could use a bot to add the templates. But that seems like a lot of work for a trivial conversion, like a template to convert all distances in km to metres because some readers claim the conversion is too difficult. It's not like you won't understand the pitch values just by glancing at the IPA. — kwami (talk) 11:52, 27 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Why remove fos incubator code from Taivoan language[edit]
If the language incubator project in Wikimedia is to promote or vitalize the use of a language (including all the dialects of it) but not to implement the standard of ISO or SIL in Wikimedia, then what is the point to remove the [fos] incubator notice from Taivoan language even if it's a dialect of Siraya so that more people interested in Taivoan can access its incubator project? -Benson Fang (talk) 12:23, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Because [fos] isn't Taivoan. The discussion was presenting it as a conflict between using [fos] for Taivoan and for Siraya. In that case, it would of course have to be Siraya. But, if there is no Siraya incubator, then I suppose it doesn't matter. In that case, please accept my apology and restore [fos] to the Taivoan incubator. — kwami (talk) 20:26, 26 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your kind understanding. I have had a discussion with my Taivoan friends and we will try to apply for a new language code by this August. At this moment, we still hope to keep [fos] in Taivoan language so that more people interested in Taivoan can access the incubator more easily so as to promote the use of the language (no matter it's a dialect of Siraya or an independent language), as [fos] has been written all in Taivoan. Is this possible? -Benson Fang (talk) 14:56, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It should be. Just undo my edits that need to be reverted. If Taivoan is a dialect of Siraya, then [fos] is fine, and Taivoan will simply act as the standard form of the language. If it's a different language, you'll eventually want to change ISO codes. But for submission to ISO, you'll need to demonstrate that Taivoan is a separate, mutually unintelligible language -- they don't issue codes for dialects. — kwami (talk) 18:52, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Kwami, I reverted this edit as it was sourced to a couple of magazine/newspaper articles and the original book (an 18th century book). Now, part of it may actually be true, but the other part, at least as far as I know, of dotting the consonants (Mei ezhuthu) was only re-introduced via that book, besides, I can't find much in terms of whether this was just a script transition timing issue that Beschi documented in the book or whether he actually created the change. Can you help with this please? cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 07:01, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Daniels & Bright note that the tittle "was optional in early writing" (p.427). In our article, we cite Mahadevan (2003:230) that the tittle has been used since the 2nd century. (Which for all I know is what D&B refers to - despite being cited a lot, they're not actually all that good a source.) It may be that our editor or their source is confusing the recent situation with Tamil Brahmi.
Sorry I can be of more help than that. I have noticed what seems to be a Dravidian-nationalist bias in some sources, such as Tamil script being older than or superior to Indic scripts, so insisting on RS's is important here, I think. — kwami (talk) 07:54, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, you might want to read this. — kwami (talk) 08:19, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I'll go ahead and try to read some more, there's a lot of revisionism creeping into most of our languages, especially the Dravidian languages but also Hindi. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 03:00, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nowadays, most SE Asian specialists prefer Kra-Dai over Tai-Kadai now: Norquest, Ostapirat, Baxter, Sagart, Sidwell, Enfield, Comrie, SEAlang.net, many more. If you read recent papers, they're all using this name now. — Stevey7788 (talk) 19:39, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I always preferred Kra–Dai, for many of the reasons you listed (even better IMO would be Tai–Kra, but oh well), but lost the vote to move the article several years ago. — kwami (talk) 19:53, 2 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
hunting an aboriginal language/language group[edit]
Hi @Kwamikagami: I have been editing Lysiphyllum cunninghamii and am frustrated by my failure to find the aboriginal language/languages/language group in which jigal means mother-in-law. I saw that you had started at least one of the articles on a Kimberley language group and since all the references I could find came from the Kimberley, I was hoping you might be able to help pin it down. MargaretRDonald (talk) 22:51, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nice! People usually don't bother to try. I actually know very little about Australian languages, but I'll ask around. — kwami (talk) 22:54, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I haven't heard back. I don't know any Australianists offline, so the chances of any of them answering aren't that good. — kwami (talk) 03:10, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Kwamikagami, I would like to synchronize Wikipedia (language families, language isolates) with newer Glottolog versions. Do You agree ?
Now it is complete (Glottolog 3.2) except Iberian, Meroitic and Maratino (unclassified on Wikipedia, language isolates on Glottolog). I Hope Usher´s classification will be accepted (Jkrn111 (talk) 15:20, 3 June 2018 (UTC))[reply]
Depends on what you mean by "synchronize". If you mean to update the glotto links in the infoboxes, and the names in the ref footnotes that those generate, then yes, by all means. But if you to mean change the structure of our family articles, or the lineages in the info boxes, then I'd say no. Besides Glottolog using different definitions of "isolate" and "unclassified" than everyone else, they are not really a RS for classification. They're better as a resource for finding RS's. For instance, just yesterday I had a question about Bororoan, which we have as Macro-Je but Glottolog has as a separate family, with a specific ref for that decision. But I checked the ref, and they include Bororoan within the Macro-Je hypothesis, which otherwise Glottolog accepts. Elsewhere, Glottolog classifications can be a hodgepodge of different sources w/o much rhyme or reason, or definitive judgements are made on the basis of rather ambiguous wording in sources. There are cases where Harald reviewed the evidence himself and made a judgement, but that's only a minority of cases, and of course it's not often that he's be able to become familiar enough with the evidence to form an expert opinion. Still, it's better than Ethnologue, which usually is completely unref'd -- even they don't know where they inherited their classifications from much of the time. But better than following Glottolog would be to review the sources they use, and compare them to the ones we already use for our articles. If their sources are more up to date, or just better scholarship, we could change our classifications to match -- but to those sources, not blindly to Glottolog. I like that we're a third easily accessible resource for people, in addition to Ethnologue and Glottolog, rather than just a mirror. — kwami (talk) 00:31, 4 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Volta–Congo missing from Niger–Congo language infobox trees[edit]
I was going to ask what you thought about the situation where the subdivision Volta–Congo, below Atlantic–Congo, is missing from most Niger–Congo language infobox trees where it would otherwise belong, such as in Kwa languages or Benue–Congo. It is included in Volta–Niger, for example. Should I go round and add it to every Volta–Congo language that doesn't have it? SUM1 (talk) 20:45, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
We don't need every intermediary node in every info box, especially when the list starts getting long.
I've hesitated with VC because of its conflict w AC. According to Blench (who is perhaps not who we should be using as a RS here), Kru and Senufo are more divergent than the erstwhile Atlantic branches. Which means that either they are not in VC, or that VC is synonymous with AC. Do you know of a recent source (beside glottolog) that contrasts VC and AC? — kwami (talk) 21:52, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
To answer the first part, Kwa languages and Benue–Congo do not have long lists. Volta–Congo would literally be their immediate parent. To answer the second part, apart from Ethnologue, Encyclopædia Britannica (at the end of this section) and this Williamson (1989) tree, I found these sources: link 1, link 2, link 3. However, yes, it does seem like Williamson and Blench are the only ones who have classified Niger–Congo this way. Although it doesn't seem like any authority has adopted anyone else's way, or that anyone else has really tried questioning Atlantic–Congo and Volta–Congo's relationship, you are right, it would not be wise to add anything until the researcher's have established what Volta–Congo is. One reason I brought it up is that a lot of sources tend to avoid mentioning the Atlantic–Congo branch at all and just go with Volta–Congo, so I thought it would make it clearer. And secondly, the traditional definitions (of Atlantic–Congo being Volta–Congo and all the Atlantic languages), whether they're genetically valid or not, are being used and referred to. Oh well. SUM1 (talk) 21:32, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have no problem with you adding VC to the other branches of NC, especially if they mention it. I adjusted the VC and AC articles so they're more in sync. But I'm not sure it would be a good use of your time to add VC to the info boxes of, say, all 500 Bantu languages. Wouldn't be too bad if you used an auto editor, but if 'Bantu' or 'Kru' or whatever are in the box, I don't know that it would really add anything. AC is a little different in that regard in that some authorities only accept the AC subset of NC as being valid. — kwami (talk) 21:42, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I would never go round just for the sole purpose of making such a change. I'm normally active on language articles anyway, so it would be with other edits or to the articles that I see it best fit. There's an inconsistency there anyway – I probably wouldn't have even brought this up if all articles did not show Volta–Congo, I'm not interested in making more inconsistency. And yes, I get the special relevance given to Atlantic–Congo (although the only authority I can immediately name which considers it a primary family is Glottolog). I probably won't end up doing this though. SUM1 (talk) 03:22, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Kwami, Could you please look at User talk:Explicit and help me ? Thanks. Jan, Prague, Czech Republic.Jkrn111 (talk) 02:42, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
your changes to Template:Switzerland Cantons Labelled Map have introduced a scrollbar on the image on Firefox. Frietjes (talk) 13:31, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm using FF and didn't see a scroll bar, but it looks good the way you have it now. — kwami (talk) 23:48, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Recognition of same-sex unions in the Czech Republic[edit]
Hi, I moved this article back to its previous page title. I spend almost all of my time on wikipedia editing articles about this country, and it is never referred to as Czechia, let alone in article titles. This is because hardly any sources do either, at present. Which articles were you thinking of when you said it's like other articles? I can't find any. Jdcooper (talk) 21:45, 27 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I meant other countries go by their short rather than formal names, and 'Czechia' is the short name per the govt. But if it hasn't caught on then so be it. — kwami (talk) 22:00, 27 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I mean presumably it will do at some point but only when the balance of sources do as well, and when it does we should do it by consensus. Jdcooper (talk) 23:06, 27 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Template:Under construction/Rutgers has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ricky81682 (talk) 10:10, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
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Wikipedia:American Heritage Dictionary representation, a page which you created or substantially contributed to (or which is in your userspace), has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:American Heritage Dictionary representation and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:American Heritage Dictionary representation during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. LakeKayak (talk) 23:02, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
for a bit, your sentiments would be appreciated! Paine Ellsworth put'r there 17:16, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
