User talk:Doctor Nationum

Karelian s vs š
Hey, thought I'd start a discussion here since you've started adding Karelian entries. You see, the same sound could be transcribed as both ⟨s⟩ and ⟨š⟩ in North Karelian, and we haven't decided yet where to lemmatise. I tried to lemmatise at the s-variant some time ago (see sana, sanakirja vs šana, šanakirja), so as to distinguish between native and  in Russian loanwords but I haven't really gone so far as to pin this down. Do you have a strong preference for using ⟨š⟩, and why?

In any case, Tver Karelian only ever uses ⟨š⟩, so we have created CAT:Tver Karelian for that, but maybe there's a more elegant solution. Also, we'll need a way to handle North/South Karelian's differences anyway. So, any ideas on that? Thadh (talk) 13:11, 18 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you for contacting me! As I see it, even if the Karelian language has a great variety of dialects, only three standard written forms have so far managed to become well-established: Viena in the north (belonging to the so-called "Karelian proper" set of dialects) as well as Livvi and Ludic, being the latter considered by many a language on its own. Tver Karelian and especially South Karelian are still struggling to form one written form of the language accepted by all.
 * Since both Livvi and Ludic have their own entries on Wiktionary, I assumed Karelian should be by default in the Viena standard, and other varieties might be explained aside if necessary (for instance voiced consonants in South Karelian). The Viena standard counts at present with a total of three letters to represent different sibilant sounds in words native to northern Karelian, i.e. s, š and s’, being š by far the most common one. It is the kind of spelling used in the most recent Russian-North Karelian dictionary (Periodika 2015) as well as the new textbook by Jevgeni Karakin or the online course by Olga Karlova. Doctor Nationum (talk) 00:30, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I've seen Karlova's course (actually, it has been printed as well under ISBN 978-5-91997-037-8). I think you forget the well-developed Kalevala Karelian (on which Zaykov's works have been based), which also distinguishes between the three sibilants but in a different way (merging s~z and s~ʃ rather than s~ʃ and ʃ). I feel like we should just pick one and stick with it, marking the other with alternative spelling of (or even a dedicated template), since we could argue forever which one is better. If you're planning on continuing working on Karelian, I guess you should have the final say in the matter. Thadh (talk) 01:36, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I believe we could still talk about it and try to come to a common decision, it is also an interesting topic to discuss. I would not say that Kalevala Karelian is a standard written version on its own, but rather that, being at the heart of White Karelia, it is one of the spoken dialects that has been mostly taken into consideration to constitute the White Karelian standard language (vienankarjala). In a way, Zaykov's work is still the modern model for such a standard, but both his North Karelian grammar as well as his Karelian-Russian dictionary are more than 20 years old, and I believe that since then the s/š/s’ system has de facto been integrally accepted into North Karelian orthography. Most modern publications from Periodika in Petrozavodsk have implemented it, the public media (Viestit Karjala) use it for North Karelian, schools have it too (check out the school textbook series by L. V. Pankrat’jeva for instance), and language associations and projects such as Karjalan Sivistysseura or Karjalan Kielen Elvyttäminen have implemented it as well. Doctor Nationum (talk) 02:19, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, and  for instance still use the s-variants, so it seems this change is very recent (starting around 2011, when Karlova's course came out in print).
 * Concidering the letter š is more loyal to the pronunciation however, I think it may be a good idea to switch over to that variant. We'll need to move over almost all our entries though, and create a template similar to what we've done with Ingrian (izh-form-Ch) for Zaykov's standardisation attempt (we'll also need an appendix explaining all this in detail). Thadh (talk) 13:16, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a good idea. I am rather new at editing on Wiktionary though, unfortunately I am not sure I know already how to do all that... Doctor Nationum (talk) 06:21, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * See Appendix:Ingrian orthographic variants: We'll need something similar to that (Appendix:Karelian orthographic variants), but of course concerning Karelian. I think you'll be better suited for writing it than I.
 * In the meantime, I'll edit WT:AKRL to explain what we've decided on. Thadh (talk) 11:48, 29 December 2021 (UTC)