Language desk
< April 27	<< Mar \| April \| May >>	April 29 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

April 28[edit]

Dillydally[edit]

What is the origin of the word Dilllydally? Thanking you in anticipation - Pupunwiki 03:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, dilly-dally is a reduplication of dally.[1] The word dally is possibly from Anglo-French dalier "to amuse oneself".[2] --Lambiam ^Talk 04:47, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keying in Hindi characters[edit]

Hi,

I am continuously trying to work with hindi related articles, but I dont really know for sure as to how can I key the hindi letters in from my English/German keyboard.

Do I have to install a font or something ? And, does it matter which browser do I use ?

Raghav 09:22, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Installing a font won't help you key the characters in, although you will need one to view them correctly. There may be some special software that allows you to type Devanagari characters directly from your keyboard, but if there is, I don't know what it is. Otherwise, you can try a variety of tactics:

You can type in the Unicode entities for each character (अ is अ, क is क, etc.)
You can keep the article Devanāgarī open in one tab and copy-and-paste characters as you need them
If you have Microsoft Word, you can use the "Insert symbol..." function there to write the word you want in a Word document, then copy and paste it here
To type a ligature like क्ष, type the first consonant क, then the virama/halant ् (its Unicode entity is ्), then the second consonant ष, and it should close up and magically make the ligature.
Type the vowel ि after the consonant it goes with, even though it appears before the consonant.

Good luck! —An gr 09:52, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

| This site has software for various fonts, I'm not sure if it has Hindi though. Storeye 12:40, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Google recently introduced a feature that lets users of Blogger enter Hindi in English transliteration, and the software then converts the text to Devanāgarī. You could then copy/paste the text over to Wikipedia. I've never used Blogger, and it seems that you might have to sign up for a (free) account, but this might help.

Blogger help page for transliteration feature

Also, Help:Multilingual support (Indic) has information on enabling support in your browser/operating system to view Devanāgarī characters correctly. Tesseran 20:56, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised no one here mentioned you can easily type any writing system with an Input Method Editor (IME)! [[User:Ozarker|Ozarker] 18:35, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Transliteration terms[edit]

Romanization means transliterating into the Latin alphabet; Cyrillization means into the Cyrillic alphabet. The article Hellenization refers only to cultral change, but can it be used to describe transliteration into the Greek alphabet as well, or is there another term? — Michael J 14:13, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia link here uses Hellenization in both the sense of cultural change and the sense of transliteration. Scouse Mouse - 日英翻訳 23:27, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]