User talk:Rursus/archive/a-4

AfD nomination of Lexophilia

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

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

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

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:06, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah! I forgot! At last! ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 08:44, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

race

Can you comment here [1] and keep an eye on it? I corrected the mistake you pointed out, and someone keeps reverting. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:24, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Thanks for reminding me. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 14:48, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

This user claims there is "no consensus" whenin fact it is just him, making noise. That is why it is important for people who know the research in Biology to be a presense here. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:47, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but I'm a computer nerd with interest in linguistics, philosophy and psychology. Using a term for something that is proven to not exist according to the original definition, is very problematic and a good way to prepare for a conflict, so there's my bias. As for "no consensus", the practice in Wikipedia is that in order for there to be a consensus (which is obligatory and binding unless the topic is non-controversial), the participants of that consensus must make some serious effort, otherwise those who are willing to make efforts for consensus will sidestep and bypass the unwilling ones. Rudeness might be handled by Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts, and similar mechanisms if the edit warring is ongoing and the trolling behavior is persistent, but I prefer to avoid those measures, if it is possible to reason with the opposing part, which more often that not is actually possible. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 16:52, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Yahweh

I've made the split on Yahweh. I'm also suggesting a new stage of editing. You might like to comment on the article talk page. PiCo (talk) 04:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

The split is an improvement. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 08:48, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Mithras changes

Hi,

I saw you contributed to the Mithras page. Would you mind discussing these changes first on the talk page? This article gets an unbelievable quantity of rubbish edits, nearly all unreferenced, and the only way to deal with this is to go through them.

Specific query: You edited "Orphic speculation influenced the cult of Mithras at times(ref)Clauss, M., The Roman cult of Mithras, p. 70(/ref). In Orphism, Phanes emerged from the world egg at the beginning of time, bringing the universe into existence." to say "may have influenced". Did you check this back against the Clauss reference? Does he say "influenced" or "may have influenced"? As I recall, he was pretty definite (and the appearance of Phanes would seem to be proof), but you may know different.

The other query: you quoted Jonathan David that there was an association of women with the cult in some areas. I'm gunshy about this one; we have a specific statement from a specialist, and Dr D. doesn't seem to be a Mithras specialist. Do you know what he says (verbatim) and what he offers as evidence? We'd need to write a big footnote, since he isn't an authority. There's any amount of publications on Mithras, you see, but much of it is bunk. I think we have to stick to the specialists. But if we could substantiate this one, it would be useful to have. Roger Pearse (talk) 21:09, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I dislike this. The article is not marked as controversial, so I just went ahead fixing the text flow as per policy WP:BOLD. My edits were for understandability of the text and removing contradictions and flaws in the text flow. We don't need to reflect the sources opinions exactly, we just mustn't misrepresent them. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 22:22, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I misread your changes then -- if so, sorry! The subject is not controversial generally, but it does attract some odd people with ideas to push, usually with no real knowledge of the subject, and desperate to push some POV. That's tedious, and it has in the past wrecked the article.

I've tried to base the whole thing on the highest quality referenced material, and also I've tried to avoid any statements which are by *me* at all. The idea is to give a fair representation of the state of modern and older scholarly opinion, and reference every statement and make it clear that it is the opinion of x, y or z (because scholars do disagree). Suggestions welcome! Roger Pearse (talk) 20:19, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Roger Pearse (talk) 20:19, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Apology accepted of course. But I'm the language and philosopher guy that walks around a lot on Wikipedia, collects data and reads material from a vast lot of sources trying to find the rules that govern the human thinking, motivation, problem solving a.s.o., so if a certain topic becomes controversial, which happens more often than one might suspect, then I avoid that topic, because engagement in a specific topic takes too much energy from the wandering and searching. While wandering about, I sometimes here and there fixup the "discourse" so that the language becomes more easy to comprehend for a random non-proficient reader, and sometimes I streamline too much, some other time I template statements to be dubious too often. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 23:02, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Heh. I know, I really do. I got lured into working on the Mithras article because it was poisoning discussion across the web downstream, and I had the hard data readily to hand. But I wish I hadn't; because of this factor you mention. It just sucks time and energy away. I try not to edit controversial wiki articles, for just that reason. I'll have to abandon my work on the Mithras article sometime, I know, and let it rot.

If you're doing stuff on English style, well done! Don't you find that most of the style is atrocious? Not easy to fix, either. (RP) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.130.59.234 (talk) 12:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually I'm making the style pretty boring. First I do my best to make the grammar comprehensible, make the discourse orderly, by making terms being defined first, and used thereafter, secondly I try to rewrite so that apparent contradictions are clarified, by "redirecting the focus" properly, trying to discern who says what: wikipedia owns the main discourse, this-or-that citable source owns that supporting or opposing standpoint: the main discourse explains, the citations discourse are "decorations" that makes Wikipedias discourse "probably true". This is an academic language, and the prose is not necessarily nice to read. I think that the current policies against essays and personal reflections make the English style desert-dry, which doesn't contradict Wikipedia's role as a weird massive kind of "encyclopedia". I'm a Swede and much more sensitive to the style of written Swedish than English, my fixups are directing towards unconfusing and clarifying the texts.

A similar but harder problem to the ones I use to attack, is when the entire article confuses topics, such as when Type II supernova confuses the observational type with the underlying mechanisms. In order to fix such confusions, a lot of participants are to be convinced that there is such a confusion, and then that this confusion matters. Let's say that if I've written Type II supernova myself, only the observational definition would have been treated, and the underlying mechanisms would have been treated in a separate article. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 12:21, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure that we can have a main discourse owned by Wikipedia, other than in a minimal form. Wikipedia has no authority, you see. So all it can do is report that others say this, and that, and include in "others" only reliable sources. Probably this is a question of emphasis, tho. Roger Pearse (talk) 12:44, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) There's always a discourse, if the text is comprehensible. The problem is neutralizing it. You probably refer to that an ideally neutral text have a discourse that says that X claims this and Y claims that. But that is a discourse! It is however a desert dry librarian discourse more like an academic one, but in the practical case, if a discourse like

It is a fact that X^[1] followed by It is a fact that not X^[2]

then the discourse is lacking. WP claims that "X and not X", which is a contradiction. The easiest shortcut to fix it is:

It has been claimed that X^[1]. followed by But, it has been claimed that not X^[2].

which is clumsy and ugly, but not a contradiction. That was my easy shortcut. In a still better case the text should be something like

The opinion on X differs. Sir 1 claims that X^[1]. followed by But, it has been claimed by sir 2 that not X^[2].

and that is only about the underlying logic, while there are topics that regard the order of definitions and definition usage, intro size/contents vs. article size/contents, Just matters of pedagogy and language. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 12:43, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Big Dipper

Hi --

You've just made a slew of edits to "Big Dipper." In my opinion, while some are justified, you've appear to have gone off the deep end with the repeated citation complaints, the box at the top being sufficient. In other cases, a minor edit for clarification seems more appropriate than wholesale excision of paragraphs.

In any event, the edit immiately before your block is nonsense, and I want to revert the article to its state before the garbage. This would, of course, wipe out all your edits.

I have no problem with reinserting your citation box. I would also modify the biblical reference to take your point into account.

My plan is to wait a couple of days before I do this to give you a chance to give ne some feedback. Revert Wars are for assholes; if we bounce our ideas off each other, I'm sure that we can both walk away satisfied. Please respond here. Thanks. B00P (talk) 05:30, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

If it would be necessary to choose, then I would prefer that the {{citations needed}} template is removed first. That template could be removed if specific points in the text, where citations are needed, are pinpointed. But I think it is justifiable that the fact templates I added remain. My only bold edit was to remove the ref to Amos 5:8, which was based on an otherwise unanswered complaint at the talk page (always address the talk page before doing edits and complaints!) from 21 Oct 09, so it was not hasty. Please address the section Wild-run article in the talk page. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 08:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay then:

• I'm perfectly willing to cut the general "citations needed" box and leave the specific points in. (If you check through the History of the article, you'll find that none of them are on anything I, myself, wrote.)
• Yes, the Biblical bit needed to be clarified. I just hadn't gotten around to it, but I shall do so.
• Your changes to the box with the star info, while colorful (overly so, IMO) has the disadvantage of slamming the columns against their cell edges, as opposed to the centered-but-columnar way it was before. On this one, I flat-out disagree with what you've don

So, your way on Point 2, mine on Point 3, and a compromise on Point 1. Fair enough? B00P (talk) 05:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Please discuss this in page Talk:Big Dipper, not here. We are not doing agreements to edit without the other editors having a say. The rules of Wikipedia explicitly say that "disputes" must be resolved on the talk page. (You are however welcome to discuss general topics, authoring, editing, tag language, weather, animals, stars and whatever here). The biblical bit is to be discussed under Disputable Biblical Reference, my templating in the section Wild-run article (I was annoyed by the article actually alleging that "karlavagnen" and "kvennavagnen" was the older terminology without sources to say so), for the box create a new heading. Actually I fixed the table from having lots of artefacts. I used CSS to layout the table, if you want to further improve the table, such as for the vertical padding in the table cells, then make a remark on the talk page, and I'll explain to you what to do: it is a certain parameter in the style attribute. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 07:50, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I am not attempting to exclude anyone from having their say; I am just trying to address your specific concerns. And thanks, but I do know how to set up the table. B00P (talk) 08:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC) (PS: East Coast, North America)

Good. I have "littered" the page Talk:Big Dipper heavily with my concerns regarding the article Big Dipper. Let's discuss it on the talk page, I'll not collapse and bail out under heavy criticism, and my issues are open for anyone to criticise. If you think I'm grumpy and particular: yes, I'm grumpy and particular, as a means to improve the article. I can be criticised for being too fault-finding, but the end effect will be that the article is updated with citations. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 09:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

"Extremely foul spamlink"

What? I looked at the link; it is neither foul nor obvious spam. You can see for yourself. What am I missing? Are you sure you put the edit summary in the right article? -RadicalOne•^{Contact Me}•_{Chase My Tail} 18:56, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, most of the rest of the alcyone.de links are virtually empty. I'll skip that one. Where did it occur? I'm doing a major cleanup removing about 500 links in 500 articles. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 18:59, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Is this process by any chance automated? Because you - or someone under your username - has removed it again with the exact same ill-fitting message. The article in question is Alpha Centauri. -RadicalOne•^{Contact Me}•_{Chase My Tail} 19:01, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

No, the process is 100% manual, and I'm working as fast as possible. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 19:02, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, Alpha Centauri. I undid it myself. I'll keep exactly that link. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 19:02, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. -RadicalOne•^{Contact Me}•_{Chase My Tail} 19:07, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

APL keyboard layout image

The IBM 2741 APL keyboard image ( File:APL-keybd2.svg ) you uploaded to Wikimedia Commons seems to be missing the IOTA character on the "I" key as a shift-I. --- Wikiklrsc (talk) 01:02, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 11:33, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Excellent! Thanks very much. Bests. --- (Bob) Wikiklrsc (talk) 18:44, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Be welcome! Thanks. Ditto. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 11:57, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Star jelly

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

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

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

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:06, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Collaboration?

Hi there Rursus, you seem to be interested in the article on the Large Magellanic Cloud. Would oyu be interested in helping me improve it to good article quality?

Regards, Reyk _YO! 08:52, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I can partake to some degree. I'm generally specialising in language and article layout, since human thought is one of my major interests, but I think I know enough of the topic in order to move the article nearer to B status, and further on. I think the articles current status of C quality is not quite justified, it's near B, and some editorial work on it can soon take the article to that status. I'll read a little about those classifications in Wikipedia:Quality#Grades to see if I'm correct... Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 18:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

We can use the article Andromeda Galaxy as a pattern. It is GA. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 18:48, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

That would be a good one to use as an example. I think it's clear that Large Magellanic Cloud will need a lot of work and expansion to get it up to GA class. An approach that has worked for me in the past is to set up a temporary page somewhere, find all the sources we can, and briefly summarize the important points in them. Then, when we have all the information we need, we can distribute each point into its relevant section in the main article along with a cite back to the original source. Do you have other ideas? Reyk _YO! 10:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that is the right way to go, as far as I know. That is my modus operandi for adding sources, although I've been sloppier and just dumped the relevant data on the talk page before. We have one more thing to consider, and that is that we're nearly on the opposite sides of planet Earth, me in Linköping/Sweden and you in Geelong/Australia, which means that we must not await the other one's answer before acting, but instead do many examinations and edits in parallel, not hesitating to comment on the other's contributions whenever we wish. A certain WP:BOLDness will be necessary. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 11:06, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree entirely. When I have collaborated with another editor in the past it hasn't been so much of an issue anyway. We each found and summarized our own sources, adding to the pool of material independently, and then when the time came to put them into the article we each picked subsections to work on so as not to edit on top of each other. Of course we would copyedit each others' work from time to time and discuss how to set up the article, but other than that I don't see a problem with us editing while the other is asleep. Does this sound reasonable?

Where would you prefer the temporary subpage to be? I have a couple of snadboxes (deliberate misspelling :) ) on my user page, but I suggest we create a subpage of Talk:Large Magellanic Cloud- with a link to it from the talk page. That way others could offer help and suggestions, and it would be less like the two of us own the article. If that's the way you want to go, feel free to start without me. I'm off to bed now. Will begin summarizing sources tomorrow morning. :) Reyk _YO! 11:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for being slow in answering that one, I missed it: anywhere. Just make a note on the Talk:Large Magellanic Cloud, and I'll join you ASAP. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 21:40, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I studied the Wikipedia:Subpages policy, and so decided that User:Rursus/Large Magellanic Cloud and its accompanying User talk:Rursus/Large Magellanic Cloud are suitable places. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 07:38, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. I've started summarizing a few sources; will do a few more tomorrow. From now on I think it would be best to correspond entirely at User talk:Rursus/Large Magellanic Cloud, so that everything's in one place. I think it's going pretty well so far. Reyk _YO! 10:06, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Reverse scientific method

But it has many sources as evidenced here and here. Perhaps your problem is with the manner in which the page has been constructed. As a topic, this "reverse scientific method", whatever it is, seems to have been discussed by many published sources. Zujine (talk) 13:53, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I have no problems in relation to the "Reverse scientific method", but the article Reverse scientific method has been nominated for deletion. Please, discuss it there, and contest my claims, to possibly increase the chances of survival. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 13:59, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

It didn't survive. Sob!(?) Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 16:15, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

wp:quote

Seeing your interest in {{quotefarm}}, I want to notify you of the proposal to promote this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.3.113.245 (talk) 05:50, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes... (?) Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 07:06, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Is "dixit" your last name?174.3.113.245 (talk) 20:35, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

No. Dixit is Latin for "have said", so approximately: Rursus dixit = "on the contrary he said", where Rursus is "on the contrary". Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 05:42, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Somewhat moribund

Ping! See [Talk:Low_Level_Virtual_Machine]. Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:00, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Sociology Newsletter: II (April 2010)

Sociology Project • News • April 2010
The Sociology WikiProject is conducting a roll call (or min-census, if you prefer). More then five years down the road, we have over 50 members, but we don't know how many of them are still active in the sociology area. If you are or want to become once again an active contributor to the sociology content on Wikipedia, please move your name from the inactive to the active list on our roll call. In other news, we have reactivated the newsletter :) At least, for this announcement. We also have a new, automated to do listing, an active tag and assess project (which has identified about 1,800 sociology articles on Wikipedia, and assessed about 1,3000 of them), and three new userboxes for your self-identification pleasure :) On a final note, I highly recommend watchlisting the Wikipedia:WikiProject Sociology page, so you can be aware of the ongoing discussions.
You have received this newsletter because you are listed as a participant at WikiProject Sociology. • signed Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:39, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

moribund

Actually, "moribund" is the term used for languages which are no longer being passed on and so can be said to be dying. Thus it describes the current state of the language, as opposed to "vibrant", which means it is being passed on. — kwami (talk) 09:08, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I see! Then maybe one should say something like: "moribund/likely to become extinct", since moribund in other contexts is not a term, but rather an un-WP:ish prediction? Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 11:41, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

In the context of languages, that would be redundant. Also, one could argue that "likely to be extinct" is more crystal-ball that "not being passed on to the next generation", though of course it follows logically from it and I wouldn't object. Or maybe we could just link the term.

Swedish pitch accent

You just added tone to a Swedish transcription, but used symbols for stress. What's the convention for that? Is it just stress, without actually indicating the tone, or is Tone 1 (falling tone on the stressed syllable) vs Tone 2 (falling tone on two syllables) somehow implied from the stress placement? — kwami (talk) 18:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, OK. That's "accent" in Swedish. I can add tone. By convention it will be just one or two lower of the same "stress" symbols. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 18:45, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

But what's the convention for using stress marks to represent tone? On the key, we transcribe stress as stress and tone as tone, but there are few articles that indicate tone directly. Thus a reader referring to the key won't recognize what we mean. Which pitch accent is conveyed with combinations of stress marks? It might be easier to add that to the key than to convert all 200 transclusions of the template. — kwami (talk) 19:11, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you know Swedish? It is not a tone accented language, so what you might be referring to is the grave and the acute accent, but they're stresses, not tones. In fact using a göta dialect expressing acute accent would give [ˌtɔmˈtən] "the garden", but in a svea dialect it would be [ˈtɔmˌtən]. Using "tones" in Swedish will not provide any information, so we are speaking about acute and grave accent if we are speaking reality. So what do you expect me to improve with the IPA description of Georg Henrik von Wright? Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 19:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Take a look at Swedish_phonology#Stress_and_pitch. The "tone" is not the point in Swedish stress accent. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 19:27, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I wrote much of that section, actually. I unfortunately don't know Swedish, but I know enough about it to understand that for an adequate description we need to indicate both the position of the stress and the word tone (whether a word is "acute" or "grave"). Otherwise Swedish would sound more like German or English. My question is the convention for describing "accent" with stress marks, and whether different sources would use the same general convention, or if it varies from author to author. — kwami (talk) 20:00, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

The wordings "grave" and "acute accents" are terms used in Swedish phonetics, they're not my private ad hoc invention. They can also be expressed double and single accents. Happenstance they coincide what accent sign was formerly used in Swedish for those accents. We shall not describe tone, that will be misleading — some dialects form a grave accented word as a bathing tube lower in the middle, while some other dialects form a grave accent as a hill at the start of the word dropping down fast. Happenstance I'm using the first method to express grave accent like my father (from the city), while my mom (from the countryside) is using the second way. There is about 20 kilometers between the places from where they come.

As I mentioned they can be expressed double and single accents. The grave, double, sounds like the're is equal stress on the first syllable and the second one, like you've said two words, f.ex. "and enn" for "anden" the spirit, but one word in "anden" the duck. If that information will help to determine the correct stress accents, maybe you can tell me if Swedish_phonology#Narrow_transcription is correctly made. I once cleaned that section up and replaced wrong phonemes with phonemes that are actually used in "standard" Swedish, but the "secondary" stress of the grave accented words are actually almost as strong as the primary. No dictionaries I use provide any accents on the Swedish text. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 20:18, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I understand they're conventional jargon. Not good to use in English, though, as "acute" and "grave" don't have this meaning outside of Swedish phonology, and we can hardly expect our readers to be familiar with that. Thus the scare quotes.

Many tone languages vary significantly between dialects. Usually we just go with the standard. The tone contours in Mandarin are reversed in various dialects too, yet we don't mark them with numbers the way Chinese phonologists often do, as that would be as arbitrary to our readers as the terms "acute" and "grave".

But given that Swedish has such a simple tone system, perhaps it is best to mark it with stress marks as you do in your narrow transcription. (Which BTW looks good to me, given my ignorance, though see below.) I suppose one could argue that the stress is primary, and the tone phonetic detail anyway. That would have the benefit of being fairly dialect neutral; we could then just describe the standard tones they correspond to on the key rather than in each transclusion. Does your transcription work equally well for Norwegian, for the words you have in common?

Also, since the two stresses are about equal, and it's only a distinction between one and two stresses in a word, mightn't it be clearer to stick to the primary stress symbol, and just double it in grave words? I at least would find that easier to read. And how do we determine the position of the 2nd stress mark? Just add it to the last syllable?

(I'm wondering now if the way you have it, 1ary + 2ary, might not be more intuitive for Norwegian, where AFAIK the distinction is low vs falling tone rather than single vs double falls. That might help keep our conventions unified. Unless Oslo is too distinct to be covered by the stress-mark system?)— kwami (talk) 20:47, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I believe you're confused by the fact that they're called "tone/accent 1" and "tone/accent 2". They're not tone accents. I told you that double accent sounds like the first and the second stressed syllables are pronounced like two separate words. If you stick to that, you won't be confused by the, I believe, four different tonal dialectal implementations of the accents. Imagining that they're tonal, there will exist no guide for unifying with Norwegian.

About two stresses, and "be clearer to stick to the primary stress symbol, and just double it in grave words". Yes maybe, or use high stress symbol on primary and low stress symbol on the second stressed syllable, giving double accent [ˈanˌdən] for the spirit and single accent [ˈandən] for the duck. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 21:18, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Every phonological description of Swedish I've ever seen has described this as tone, though they use various words, like "pitch accent" (also "accent", "word tone", etc.). I can believe that stress is primary and tone incidental; it certainly seems, as you say, that transcribing the stress is a more dialectically universal system.

IMO, [ˈanˈdən] is more legible than [ˈanˌdən]. It makes it look more like two words, for one thing, better matching your description. We also have an unfortunate convention in English, esp. in the United States, of using 2ary stress marks for unstressed syllables, so I have acquired something of a distaste for them unless they actually mark 2ary stress.

In your opinion, would it make any difference which one we use?

Also, if you could briefly describe the four regional tonal realizations, that would be a useful thing to add to the IPA-sv key. — kwami (talk) 21:36, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Stress/pitch/tone accent: it is most definitely not tone accent. The article Pitch accent seems to distinguish pitch accent from stress accent. My book "Lärobok i fonetik", Bertil Malmberg, 1967, Gleerups, (no ISBN found), claims "stress accent" but also that "Far from always are the accent, that we traditionally regard as stress accents, solely nor dominantly expressed by the volume of the sound" (translated). This book might be a little outdated, so that a term "pitch accent" didn't yet exist when written. I believe the prosody is varying dialectally very much, but that a fluent Swedish speaker pretty immediately identifies the prosodic habits of the speaker, thereafter translate this impression to a word stressing pattern, which is applied to the spoken language to identify words. It is very hard to listen to a non-fluent Swedish speaker that doesn't apply grave accents to the words. However, a speaker uniformly using the grave accent to each and every word, even when applying it erroneously, pose virtually no problems at all. The examples of Swedish_phonology#Stress_and_pitch are in practice never real problems, because conflicts can easily be solved by context. The main usage of the grave accent is to mark the start and end of words, making

ˈKyckˈling ˈlever chicken lives,

quite distinctive from

ˈKycklingˈlever chicken liver.

And that the stems in

ˈSpårvagnsförarhandˈbok tram drivers handbook

belong to one composed word is easily perceivable when hearing it.

In my speech habits [ˈanˈdən] vs. [ˈanˌdən] doesn't matter.

I don't know where to find the four (I believe) regional tonal realizations, some phonology report need to be found somewhere, but not in my bookselves, at least not tonight. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 22:38, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Good stuff to know!

"Pitch accent" is basically just a simple form of tone. I don't know the phonology of Swedish, but if it's a "pitch accent" language, then it's a (simple) tone language. But not all pitch-accent systems include stress the way Swedish does, so perhaps stress + tonic prosody (rather than lexical tone) is a better way of analyzing it. Anyway, it would seem to be an adequate way of transcribing it. — kwami (talk) 23:45, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

What do we make of (in the Swedish phonology article) "The phonemicity of this tonal system is demonstrated in the nearly 300 pairs of two-syllable words differentiated only by their use of either grave or acute accent"? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 02:20, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

If it is phonemically stress rather than tone (and today I have found some things that appear to make that claim, at least on cursory reading[2]), then it would appear that those would be equivalent to blackbird (acute) vs black bird (grave). Though I'm not saying this is actually the case. — kwami (talk) 04:44, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

It seems we've accidentally jumped over the research front into the unknown. At least there is a pattern to follow for the single and double accent, [ˈanˌdən] for the spirit and [ˈandən] for the duck.

And yes to blackbird (acute) vs black bird (grave). I suspect the system is not very unique for Swedish.

Sorry, got that backwards - it is actually opposite the Swedish pattern, but as simulations of grave vs. acute they're good. There is a "fifth" intonation pattern making no tonal distinction between acute and grave, but the dialects doing so pose no intelligibility trouble to Swedes that use a tonal distinction. I believe those tones are due to an adaption of the added-on prosody used to structure sentences into words, phrases and to signal question-vs-statement and similar speach act signals. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 19:25, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I think I have an idea what to do about the Swedish phonology article, since the topic of stress is largely unresearched. There is no doubt that there is a connection between tone and Swedish accent, and that this connection, whether direct or indirect is attested. The article can largely be kept as it is, but all statements that accent is implemented by tone, and similar boldnesses, should be blurred to just allege that a connection exists, and that accent largely (but not solely) expresses as tone variations. I'll take a look. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 19:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

There is some description of Swedish stress in a chapter here. (Unfortunately it's based on OT, as if that would illuminate anything, but such are fads.) It would seem that stress is basic, though whether more basic than tone, as you note, there doesn't seem to be much data. (You make the point that tone is more variable dialectically, but that's typical of tone, and is not evidence that tone is less basic than stress. We'd probably need some cognitive experimentation to determine that, though of course speaker intuition like yours is worth considering too, even if we can't ref it.)

The Swedes I know hate the Swedish Chef. You have a remarkably secure sense of humor. — kwami (talk) 21:23, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I have read it, and I think we should need to make some cognitive experiments. My tests on pronouncing the double and single accent on [ˈanˌdən] and [ˈandən] perfectly monotonically, indicates that it is hard to distinguish them, but that the ˈan in [ˈanˌdən] contra-intuitively is longer and more stressed than ˈan in [ˈandən], but in order to make the test properly, we should need some listener to my voice, and we should also need to test it with the other dialect speakers — I can imitate some few selected dialects pretty OK, but doing it monotonically will be above my language proficiency.

The Swedish Chef was very popular among the Swedes in Sweden. He was kind of a cult puppet making an extra tournament in Sweden. There are still quite many people that remember him. I've never met a Swede hating him, those who remember him use to giggle. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 21:41, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, perhaps expat Swedes in the US are more sensitive to being made fun of. Glad to hear he was popular in Sweden; as a kid I thought he was hilarious. — kwami (talk) 21:47, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Swedish y and u

Hey, while we're on the topic, you might want to review Roundedness#Types of rounding. Do you think the pix are accurate? (I don't see any space for airflow.) The problem with the 'more rounded' diacritic you've used is that a priori I'd have no idea whether it was supposed to be protruded or compressed. Do you feel that one is actually more rounded than the other, as opposed to just differently rounded? — kwami (talk) 21:38, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I mean that "more rounded" in ʏ̹β not ʉβ is the "compressed" type of rounding. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 21:53, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Actually, that might work pretty well. If I am correct in thinking that rounded front vowels are generally compressed in the world's languages, then Swedish u would be a typical [y], though perhaps with exaggerated rounding to distinguish it from y. Y would then need a different diacritic to show protrusion, and that's where the IPA starts to break down. I suppose one could always fall back on ad hoc raised letters, [ʏ^β] vs [ʏ^ɥ], here meaning a quality of the vowel rather than an off-glide.

(My impression from other Swedish speakers is that it is Swedish u that is closer to German ü and French u, and Swedish y that is unusual, though I'd be interested in your take on that.) — kwami (talk) 22:17, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, except that Swedish u: is a little more compressed ("rounded") than ü in order to "make room for" y:. Of y: I know no non-Swedish counterpart, but my knowledge restricts to English, German, Swedish and a little Romanian. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 22:33, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I was insecure in my knowledge, and there is a lot of contradictory (and often poorly informed) info out there.

The "making room for" idea makes sense, and is exactly the kind of thing that the more-rounded diacritic was made for. Ewe has two 'f' sounds, bilabial /ɸ/ and labio-dental /f/, and the /f/ is more fortis than /f/ in other languages, I would assume to "make room for" the /ɸ/, which is not as salient. So, since it's the Swedish y that's the odd man out, I would think we'd need a special IPA letter for it. Then if we can just figure out what to do with Japanese u ... (I suppose [u^β]) or [ɯ^β] would work.) — kwami (talk) 22:45, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

My ears tells me something very similar to Swedish u:, or maybe a little more open, when hearing . Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 06:08, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Japanese u is a bit forward from 'back', and Swedish u is a bit back from 'front', so perhaps they aren't all that distinct. — kwami (talk) 21:01, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh, would you mind fixing the pronunciation at Ingo? Thanks! — kwami (talk) 08:26, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. The Sw pron is I think a little variable. I believe the name is really mainly German. In Swedish I also think the accent is always "grave"/single in opposition to "Inga". The most reknowned Ingo in Sweden is the boxer Ingemar "Ingo" Johansson. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 16:05, 16 May 2010 (UTC)