User talk:-sche/Archive/2013

Dates of the English language, in particular the word a
I am still learning all the nuances of this undertaking, and granted I am not as knowledgeable in the languages as I am in the Sciences, but I am learning as I go. After your deletion of the a definitions for she, he, it, they etc. I did a bit of research and I see where you are coming from. It would have helped if you or anyone could have just pointed some of these things out to some of us newcomers. I understand that people may not feel it is their job to train all the newbie's but a little advice and "training" would go a long way in saving both yours and others time later on down the road, especially to those of us that it appears apparent are not just entering the odd word, but are attempting to assist in this great undertaking in a meaningful way. First, I want to explain the way that I am/was wording things on the defdate template. If it is in current use I would say something like First attested around 1350 to 1470., meaning that is when it was first documented. If it is obsolete, I would say something like, Attested from around 1350 until 1470. or Attested from around 1350 to 1470 until the late 16th century. In particular with the she, he, it variations of the word a, my sources stated obsolete except in Scottish and English dialectal form, which I took to mean it was still in limited modern usage. Now back to the research (quick) that I did, I see that the Modern English language is said to have "arrived" in the early to mid 15th century, so I will keep that in mind when I am adding obsolete words that didn't go beyond those dates and then I will place them in their respective Middle or Old English areas. With all of this, there is a question that comes to light if a word is formed as my SOED say in the OE range of prior to 1150, but still persists into the modern English ranged of the 17th century, does it get an entry in all three date ranges of the English language, Old, Middle, and plain English? Finally, as I have stated before on many of my posts, (not just to you, -sche, but to all, please correct me, guide me, or whatever you need to do, (in a pleasant manner :) please), as that will make your job's easier if I am making mistakes and it will make mine easier of I don't have to go back and clean up my own mistakes. Speednat (talk) 18:12, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I am not too good at this finding and citing thing, but I did run across Shakespeare's Henry V, where he writes "a babbled of green fields" where a definitely is he. I don't know how I found that, it just kind of popped up while I was looking for something else. Anyway I am not losing too much sleep over this, I just want the product (WT) to be as good and comprehensive while accurate as possible. Speednat (talk) 03:56, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi! I didn't realise you were the one who added the [[a]] senses, or I would just have asked you what you meant by the dates; I'm sorry. (Sorry also that I and other Wiktionarians are so taciturn.) Regarding "obsolete except in Scottish and English dialectal form": in speech, I expect /ə/ or /ɑ/ is found (for "he", "it" and "they" if not for the others) in many dialects, as a reduction of /hi/, /ɪt/, etc... but I couldn't find anything in print. It's hard to search for, too (as you know)... I should probably scour a Shakespeare corpus to see if anything else like the "a babbled" you cite turns up for "she", "it" or "they".
 * Regarding words attested in multiple periods: if a word is attested in Old English, it should have an ==Old English== entry, yes. I think Wiktionary should also have Middle and Modern English sections for words attested in both those periods (because pronunciation and sometimes inflection differ), but I get the impression from some other editors that they don't think Middle English entries are necessary if a word is also attested in modern English. - -sche (discuss) 04:06, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I believe I found two more to make it a threesome, is that is needed to qualify an entry? I believe I have read that as correct, so I will re-add the entry with the citations. Let me know what you think, please. Speednat (talk) 07:21, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Scratch that. I didn't realize that the senses in question were all but he, which is what all of my citations cover. So I guess that I will keep my eye open for other instances. Also, I didn't realize that me evolution was as drastic as it has been. Back when I started using the defdate template (like with the a entry), I was just writing in years. I have since added the more detailed words that I stated above. I may need to go back and expand all of those "poor" entries, as they aren't extremely clear. Speednat (talk) 07:31, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Formatierung
Hallo -sche,

Könntest du bitte meine Ergänzung an das übliche, englische Format anpassen? Ich danke dir! Schöne Grüße --Yoursmile (talk) 12:16, 3 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Hallo Yoursmile! Das passte schon an einer der hier-üblichen Formate. :) Einige Benuzter leiten die Definitionen von englischen Wörtern mit Großschreibung ein (als pseudo-Sätze, die auch mit einem Punkt abgeschlossen werden), andere verwenden Kleinschreibung und keinen Punkt, besonders wenn es um einfache Glossierungen handelt. (Definitionen von anderssprachigen Wörtern sind in der Regel nur Glossierungen.) MfG, - -sche (discuss) 21:40, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Rhymes
I am starting to look at working on the Rhymes section and I noticed that there are missing templates. Who should I get with to make sure, that when I make these missing templates that I am doing so correctly? I have made a couple already and they seem to work fine, but I want to make sure that all my I's are dotted and T's crossed. The ones that I have done so far are Here and Here and I made some changes Here and Here. Speednat (talk) 17:23, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

eine Bitte zu Kurzweil
Hallo -sche! Von Benutzer Metaknowledge wurde die Bitte geäußert, die Beispiele zu übersetzen. Ich habe versucht, ihm die Problematik von Übersetzungen klar zu machen. Zwei offizielle Übersetzungen habe ich gefunden, von denen eine das Lemma völlig ignoriert und die gegebene Übersetzung, wie mir scheint, auch dessen Bedeutung nicht konnotiert. Des Weiteren habe ich versucht, alle anderen Beispiele zu übersetzen. Nun meine Bitte: Wärst du so gut und schaust dir alles mal an und korrigierst sie. Ich denke, es ist wichtig, das genaue Register zu treffen, was mir leider nicht zu gelingen scheint. Vielen Dank dafür im Voraus. — Lieben Gruß dir und ein gesundes Neues Jahr, Caligari  ƆɐƀïиϠႵ  07:52, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Hier die Beispiele samt Übersetzungen:

—Friedrich Schiller: Die Verschwörung des Fiesco zu Genua. Ein republikanisches Trauerspiel. [1783] In: Schillers Sämtliche Werke. Erster Band, J. G. Cotta′sche Buchhandlung, Stuttgart 1879 (Projekt Gutenberg; retrieved January 3, 2013). —Friedrich Schiller: Fiesco, or The Genoese Conspiracy. A Tragedy by Frederich Schiller. The Echo Library, Teddington 2006, ISBN 1-4068-2052-0, p 16 (GoogleBooks; retrieved January 4, 2013). —Heinrich Heine: Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland. [1833/34] In: Der Salon. Band II, Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 1835 (Projekt Gutenberg; retrieved January 3, 2013). —Rainer Maria Rilke: Mohn … [1895] In: Die Erzählungen. 1. Auflage, Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1997 (Projekt Gutenberg; retrieved January 3, 2013). —Kurt Tucholsky: Der Bär tanzt. [1928] In: Das Lächeln der Mona Lisa. 1. Auflage, Ernst Rowohlt, Berlin 1929, p. 222 (Wikisource; retrieved January 3, 2013). —Eike Nienaber: Otjiwarongo hat viele Namen… In: Allgemeine Zeitung. Älteste Tageszeitung Namibias — Nachrichten von A bis Z auf gut Deutsch. August 7, 2008 (URL; retrieved January 3, 2013). —Das Fabelhafte Weihnachts-Spektakulum. In: Tageblatt. Zeitung fir Lëtzebuerg. December 9, 2011 (URL; retrieved January 3, 2013).
 * 1) * „Schiebt meine Vernunft nicht im Kurzweil herum.“
 * "[…] mock not thus my reason."
 * Do not mock my reason whilst amusing yourself.
 * Do not push around my reason whilst amusing yourself.
 * Do not trifle my reason whilst amusing yourself.
 * 1) * „Unter den nackten Göttern und Göttinnen, die sich dort bei Nektar und Ambrosia erlustigen, seht Ihr eine Göttin, die, obgleich umgeben von lauter Fröhlichkeit und Kurzweil, dennoch immer einen Panzer trägt und den Helm auf dem Kopf und den Speer in der Hand behält. Es ist die Göttin der Weisheit.“
 * Amongst the naked Gods and Godesses who disport themselves there with nectar and ambrosia, you see a Goddess who, although surrounded by nothing but/pure joyance and diversion, however always wears a cuirass and keeps her helmet on and her spear in the arm. It is the Goddess of Wisdom.
 * 1) * „Freilich, du willst sie bei Namen nennen und liebkosen; du willst sie am Ohre zupfen und Kurzweil mit ihr treiben.“   —Friedrich Nietzsche: Von den Freuden- und Leidenschaften. In: Also sprach Zarathustra. Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. Ernst Schmeitzner, Chemnitz 1883, p. 45 (DTA; retrieved January 3, 2013).
 * "To be sure, thou wouldst call it by name and caress it; thou wouldst pull its ears and amuse thyself with it."   —Friedrich Nietzsche: Joys and Passions. In: Thus Spake Zarathustra. A Book for All and None. The Modern Library, New York 1917, p. 34 (translated by Thomas Common; Wikisource; retrieved January 4, 2013).
 * 1) * „Und da gab’s in diesem vornehmen Kreise mancherlei Kurzweil.“
 * And there was various amusement in this courtly circle.
 * 1) * „Indessen scheint es, daß sie keinerlei Neigung besitzt, unserer Schäferstunde den Verlauf bloßer Kurzweil zu geben.“
 * It seems however that she has no inclination to give our tryst the tenor of bare/mere/sheer amusement.
 * 1) * „Seien es nun landschaftliche, kulturelle oder tierische Attraktionen - der Ort samt Umland wartet mit jeder Menge touristischer Kurzweil auf.“
 * Whether it be the scenic, cultural or animal attractions – the place, along with its hinterland, offers a lot of touristic pastime.
 * 1) * „Handwerksstände zum Mitmachen und ein attraktives Kinderprogramm bieten Kurzweil für Groß und Klein.“
 * Craft stalls to join in and an attractive program for children offer pastime for young and old.


 * Wow, du hast Recht, die offizielle englische Übersetzung der Verschwörung des Fiesco ist schlecht. Ich habe eine zweite Übersetzung gefunden, von George D'Aguilar: "Speak, I / Conjure you, speak, nor longer trifle with / A lover's tortures." Auch das gibt den Sinn nicht exakt wieder. I'll see what I can come up with, though. :) Liebe Grüße, - -sche (discuss) 21:36, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Kurzweil
I apologize for removing the L2 header from the entry. In regards to the actual content of my edit, why are you opposed to using "pages and pages of the edit window" when it makes the wikitext vastly more readable? I don't like guessing what part of the quotation is the publisher, what part is the chapter, what is the title, for each editor's personal formatting style. DTLHS (talk) 20:28, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not the only one who thinks the templates, rather than making things "vastly more readable", have the opposite effect. Ruakh, too, has called them "a huge broken mess that should never be used". If quotations are formatted according to the standard format prescribed in WT:", chapter titles won't be confused with publishers. If quotations don't follow the standard format, it's no harder to convert them to it than to convert them to templates. (Well, someone used to the manual format might have to look at the template's documentation to remember its parameters, and someone used to the template might have to look at WT:" to remember the manual format, but that's a wash and goes away with exposure to the other format, anyway.)
 * I don't recall a discussion of the issue itself, though (only discussions like the one I link to that ended up touching on it tangentially). Perhaps we should start one... - -sche (discuss) 20:48, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Reference-book template
I am butting heads with my favorite antagonist Dan Polansky over the use of the reference-book template. I know you are familiar with my edits and I would appreciate your opinion on the matter. Normally I utilize the template to inline cite things like IPA or etymology information or if a really obscure definition is expanded on. I then use the s as s in that particular   section. So, I told it to save the code even with the 'error'. (I shouldn't have done that.) I then checked the diff, at which point I saw the commas go missing, and re-added them. (How they went missing in the first place is a mystery.) I hadn't previewed the diff before saving that because that operation is prohibitively slow on my computer, since it combines the already slow operations of loading the page in the edit window and checking the difference between two revisions (see Wikitiki's GP post). I didn't notice any outbreak of script errors, because I continued adding family info to various languages, and so didn't open any page besides Module:languages until much later (whereas I fixed the problem within five minutes). I'm actually slightly put off by that; if I broke as many pages as the GP implies, I'd like to have noticed. - -sche (discuss) 15:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Slight objection to "can do without"
I responded to the discussion, with a slight objection. Please respond. Tharthan (talk) 17:09, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Etymology of 'Vampire'
I saw you reverted my edit on the possibility that the origin of the word 'vampire' might actually be Albanian 'dhampir'. I think this is a very real possibility, considering: 1) the Albanian-Romanian historical proximity, 2)Abanian-Romanian common words and phonetic rules in loanwords, 3)the very detailed and thorough etymology 'dhampir'. Robert Elsie is not a linguist and what he thinks about the etymology of dhampir is frankly irrelevant. In fact, it is phonetically impossible for dhampir to be derived from Slavic *ypir (what does this word mean in Slavic anyway?), while the term was spreaded in the world through Romanian vampir, which reflects perfectly Albanian dhampir (Alb. th/dh>Rom.f/v-z, cf. Alb. thërrime 'crumb>Rom.farima 'id' etc)Etimo (talk) 21:50, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Mono
I saw this edit and I think that it is a bad idea to use names of political entities in language names. Could we not have called them "Mono (America)" and "Mono (Congo)"? --WikiTiki89 22:01, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * This is a thought-provoking question. I don't agree that using country names is a bad idea, or more accurately, I don't think using "Congo" would be better. And FWIW, using country names has been an en.Wikt practice (copied, it seems, from Ethnologue) for a long time — since before I started editing language names. We have other lects disambiguated as "(Ghana)", "(Central African Republic)", etc, and I documented the practice in WT:LANG. It's not the first choice, of course: that's "use an alternative name, if one is attested". But it's also not the last line of defence against having two languages with the same name: if, as sometimes happens in Indonesia and in Africa, two lects share both a name and a home country, they can be disambiguated by their respective families. You've prompted me to wonder if we shouldn't make "disambiguate by family membership" our second go-to (and use "disambiguate by home country" third, i.e. swap the order of the two). In fact, we could even consider whether or not using family disambiguation would be preferable to using alternate names as a first go-to. (Maybe not, since it would mean a lot of languages would have trailing parentheticals.) Even if we don't decide to make family membership our second go-to, we should decide how we want to present it. We currently have an "Austronesian Mor" (contrasted with a "Sepik Mor"), but also a "Mari (Austronesian)" contrasted with a "Mari (Sepik)". Both are my doing (whoops!), because I had forgot about the Mors when I named the Maris, and was following the model of the parenthetical country names. - -sche (discuss) 23:00, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I do like the idea of using names like "Austronesian Mor" instead of "Mari (Austronesian)", so maybe we should do that more often. But I still think that if family names are not enough, we should not use country names for diambiguation at all, but rather the name of the region. Countries change all the time, while regions stay where they are. I certainly hope that "United States of America" won't change any time soon, but if it does, the name "Mono (America)" would still be valid. As for the Congolese one, maybe it could be "Mono (Africa)". Do you think this would be a WT:BP discussion? If so, I will probably wait until after Thanksgiving before bringing it up there. --WikiTiki89 23:15, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, I've started Beer parlour/2013/November. I apologise if you had been planning to and I pre-empted you. - -sche (discuss) 23:21, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * No, it makes no difference who starts it. --WikiTiki89 01:31, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Bahnaric
What is this? I have never heard of that family before. -- Liliana • 10:23, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * And I don't know why my recent edit removed them. I must have accidentally edited an old revision. -- Liliana • 10:26, 1 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Bahnaric is a family of Afroasiatic Austroasiatic languages; overviews of it can be found in the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (volume 1, starting on page 487) and Wikipedia. Information on North Bahnaric and on the classification of Hre (hre being the language that brought the family to my attention) can be found Edmondson, Gregerson and Sidwell 2011 and Smith 1972. I hadn't heard of the family, either, till yesterday. :b
 * As for Ubangian, I didn't affiliate it with Niger-Congo because the scholarship cited by WP (even, notably, the scholarship that classifies it as Niger-Congo) suggests that no evidence to support Greenberg's initial placement of it in Niger-Congo has actually "ever be[en] produced" and it (per Dimmendaal) "probably constitutes an independent language family that cannot or can no longer be shown to be related to Niger–Congo (or any other family)." If it is to be reclassified as nic-, we'll need to move it into alphabetical order in Module:families and update the [//en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&profile=advanced&search=qfa-ubg&fulltext=Search&ns828=1&redirs=1&profile=advanced various languages] in Module:languages that call on it under its old (qfa-) code. - -sche (discuss) 18:36, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I think you're confusing Afro-Asiatic and Austro-Asiatic. -- Liliana • 15:53, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Oops, dyslexia strikes again! Thanks for pointing that out. - -sche (discuss) 15:57, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Protocol-relative URLs.
Re: "the software knows which prefix to provide based on whether the user is browsing securely (https) or not (http), right?": Right, though to be clear, the "the software" in question is the Web browser or other user agent. If you view the HTML source, you'll see that the MediaWiki software just passes through the //... unscathed. (Sorry if you already understood that. To me "the software" sounds like MediaWiki software, but maybe that's just me.) —Ruakh TALK 05:08, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks for the clarification. :) - -sche (discuss) 05:58, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Use of /e/ where /ɛ/ would be more appropriate
I've always considered these to be quite different phonemes. /e/ is like a monophthong version of /ɛi/, whilst /ɛ/ is... erm... /ɛ/.

Yet I've seen quite a few times where /e/ has been used where /ɛ/ would have been more appropriate. I can't recall any off the top of my head, but I am certain I've seen instances.

These weren't at the end of a word either, so I don't think it's a dialectual (yeah, I know it's "dialectal"; it's a habit) thing.

Any ideas? Tharthan (talk) 01:58, 3 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Hmm, could you give me some context? What language are you talking about — English? In standard US and UK English, the closest thing to /e/ is /eɪ/ (which some sub-varieties realise as [e]), the vowel of "play" and "made". I'm not familiar with /ɛi̯/ in English, but it does exist in Dutch. Some varieties of English use /e/ where other varieties use /ɛ/, even in the middle of words; for example, the Australians pronounce "bed" /bed/ while the Brits and Americans say /bɛd/. Lastly, the 'e'-like vowel that occurs before the 'r' of words like "air" (and some or all of "Mary", "marry" and "merry", depending on the speaker) is difficult if not impossible to transcribe precisely using the IPA, for which reason you'll find all of /e/, /eɪ/, /ɛ/, /ɛə/ or /ɛː/ (and perhaps other things) in broad transcriptions of it (e.g. in [[air]], [[dairy]] and [[dare]]). - -sche (discuss) 02:52, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's merry, Mary, marry merger related, (though I did indeed notice the odd transcription style of those words and was going to eventually ask about that.)
 * In actuality, I think it's the instances of words like /bed/ where I would have expected /ɛ/. Actually, I had thought only dialects of Northern England and Scotland would use /e/ in such a situation. Tharthan (talk) 12:58, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Categories for rhymes
I think Grease pit/2013/December could benefit from your input. 18:08, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Slovincian
WT:LANGTREAT doesn't mention Slovincian. I was wondering whether we made the decision not to treat it as a dialect of Kashubian, or whether it just happened that way. I have no preference one way or the other, since I don't know much about it anyway. --WikiTiki89 16:04, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It looks like it just happened that way. I mean, both Slovincian and Pomeranian have exceptional codes, so someone made the conscious decision to treat them, Kashubian, and Polish as distinct from each other. But both codes were created by the same user who also created separate exceptional codes for the Pitcairn and the Norfolk varieties of Pitcairn-Norfolk, which subsequent discussions all agreed to re-merge, so it's possible (and indeed, apparently the case) that it was just that one use who got the idea that they should be split. There does not seem to have been any community discussion of Slovencian, Kashubian or Pomeranian, but About Slovincian has been created. I have updated LANGTREAT to note that "in practice,..." they are currently distinct. - -sche (discuss) 18:50, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Babel-autocreate-text-main
Can you rewrite it as:

This is probably what was troubling the constant recreation of Category:$1 language because it appears nonempty in Special:Categories. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 11:52, 19 December 2013 (UTC)


 * ✅; thanks for pointing that out! - -sche (discuss) 22:47, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Removing scripts
Some entries may specify a script with  even if no language has that script specified. When you remove the scripts, those entries will eventually trigger script errors. 14:44, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I checked for such entries. When they existed, I added the script code to the relevant language code rather than removing it. - -sche (discuss) 20:06, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Dard etymology
I thought it was a bit odd to offload this to the talk page. As with any part of an entry, we sometimes have incomplete data that needs further massaging. In this case I imagine I had copied the root word(s) from Wikipedia. I'm doing it again right now with kachori; surely it's better to have something than nothing, and to put it in the right place where it will be seen? Equinox ◑ 23:27, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * On kachori, the etymology gives several words in specific languages, which it implies are etyma. (I say "implies" because it doesn't say "from Hindi..." so they might be cognates.) That's not problematic. On Dard, the "etymology" consisted of dard spelled in two different scripts, each of which is used by numerous (sometimes unrelated) languages... that's not helpful, IMO, because it's not even verifiable/falsifiable. Is the implication that Dard derives from Sanskrit, which is written in Devanagari? Modern Hindi/Urdu, which is written in both scripts? Persian? Konkani? Talysh? Or that it's cognate or related to a word in those languages? - -sche (discuss) 02:36, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I've re-added it, but with languages specified. (Can't be sure it's from either the Hind or the Persian word, but it's clearly related to them, so I've said that.) How's it look? - -sche (discuss) 02:50, 28 December 2013 (UTC)