User talk:Justinrleung/Archive 16

竹排/竹棑
Hey, I was looking at your edit on 竹筏, and I was wondering: is 竹排 a legitimate alternative form of 竹棑? My shurufa (FHL Taigi-Hakka IME) gives me 竹排 when I type in 'tek-pâi'. Would a usage note be called for on the 棑 page, like with 漋? Thanks for your patience. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 02:55, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 * 竹排 is used in standard Chinese and I think it can be used to write the Min Nan word, too. 棑 seems to be a valid alternative form of 排 (in this context) in standard Chinese too. I think we should probably have 竹排 as the main form and 竹棑 as an alternative form. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 03:01, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 * What about something like the way I have set up and ? The issue seems to turn on the question of whether 棑 is an alternate form of 排. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 03:27, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Xiandai Hanyu Cidian says 棑 is an alternative form of 排 for the "raft" sense. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 03:34, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian has a similar opinion. But I don't think they are saying that this is an alternative form- 异体字 are in parenthesis next to the character, but this character has it's own entry. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 04:03, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Also, 棑 doesn't appear in https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/通用规范汉字表 as an 异体字 (or at all). --Geographyinitiative (talk) 04:04, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 * It doesn't have to be an officially-listed 異體字 to be considered an alternative form. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 04:08, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I made some edits to that page. I have come to the conclusion that 竹排 is an unofficial '異型詞'(alternate form) of 竹棑 in Min Nan, and that 竹棑 is a Min Nan synonym for the Mandarin 竹排. I enjoy trying to think this through. Sorry for troubling you. If I am wrong, by all means change the page. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 04:47, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I've made 竹棑 into a variant form of 竹排 and added a note at 竹排. 竹排 seems to be more common across various varieties of Chinese. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 18:53, 3 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Is the Ministry of Education of Taiwan just playing around when they give us 竹棑 as the standard form for Min Nan? They don't know what they are doing, do they? Bunch of idiots they are! How can they not know that 竹排 is the real form? How can they be so stupid as to add a rare character there? Again I repeat: 竹排 is (seems to be?) an unofficial '異型詞'(alternate form) of 竹棑 in Min Nan, and that 竹棑 is (seems to be?) a Min Nan synonym for the Mandarin 竹排. Yet again, here we are, bullying dialects to conform. Yuck, yuck, yuck. We are wiser than the scholars at the Ministry of Education of Taiwan who complied that dictionary. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 22:09, 3 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Please do not revert edits without discussion. The MoE has their reasons for choosing 棑, namely that 棑 is a more specialized character to mean "raft". However, we don't need to follow them on everything. I think it's more appropriate to choose the form that is used more commonly across varieties of Chinese. 竹排 is also used for Min Nan, e.g. in 普通话闽南方言常用词典 and 台文華文線頂辭典. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 22:17, 3 June 2019 (UTC)


 * We don't need to follow them on everything, but why diverge? This is not about other dialects, this is about Min Nan. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 22:22, 3 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Ultimately, it is just the choice of character made by one prescriptivist body, no? We are not beholden to follow them. Diverge because we have the freedom to do so and see that it may be better. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 22:30, 3 June 2019 (UTC)


 * When we deal with words that are used in different varieties, we can't just isolate one variety and focus on it. Since Min Nan is considered a variety of Chinese, we should think of all the varieties together and pick the most common form across varieties. If 竹排 were not used in Min Nan, then ok, we can consider 竹棑 to be a different lemma, but since it is used in Min Nan, 竹棑 would have to be a variant form of 竹排 because 棑 is generally considered to be a variant of 排 in the "raft" sense. If you disagree with this philosophy of choosing the main form, feel free to bring it up in WT:BP. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 22:37, 3 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Many dialects with roots in North Europe spell 'September' as 'September' (German Norwegian Swedish Danish Scots Dutch) but the Wikipedia page for the Frysk/West Frisian reads as 'Septimber'. https://fy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimber West Frisian has its own page on Wiktionary https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/septimber  竹排 is an unofficial variant- maybe it's code-mixing from Mandarin when it appears in text. "棑 is generally considered to be a variant of 排 in the "raft" sense"- is this true? If this is really true, then why is the character not shown in parenthesis after the character 排 in Xiandai Hanyu Cidian and Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian? Also, 棑 is not listed as a variant of 排 in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters, so I don't agree that  "棑 is generally considered to be a variant of 排". It's not a variant, its the proper form of a word that has been 'simplified' down (in my estimation).  --Geographyinitiative (talk) 22:47, 3 June 2019 (UTC)


 * The notion of considering variants as "official variants" and "unofficial variants" is kind of absurd - whatever diverges from the "standard" would be a variant. While 棑 is not listed in Xiandai Hanyu Cidian and Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian right beside 排 in parentheses, the entry for 棑 says it's equivalent to 排 in the "raft" sense, which is essentially the same as what we're doing with or, i.e. treating it as a variant form. (Of course there are also dictionaries that treat 簰 as the main form, but that's definitely out of the question because it's much less common in the modern context.) As I have said before, Min Nan is considered a variety of Chinese here; under this framework, which is different from how other languages/dialects are dealt with, we need to consider Min Nan in the bigger context of the whole body of Chinese. To have a full entry at 竹棑 only for Min Nan is also bad because 竹棑 is not restricted to Min Nan - it seems to be used in at least Mandarin and Hakka as well. We also want to pay more attention to the spoken form rather than the written orthography: 竹棑 and 竹排 are definitely the same word orally. Having both 竹棑 and 竹排 as full entries makes it redundant, making  a much better solution to this. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 23:04, 3 June 2019 (UTC)


 * To not realize that there are officially sanctioned and recognized variants as well as unofficial variants is the true absurdity.
 * Let Min Nan use the characters the way it wants to, bully. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 23:10, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Just butting in to say that calling other editors bullies in good-faith, meaningful discussions is unproductive. We don't want to descend to personal attacks. (Also, I don't know much about this topic, but I want to point out that despite the unusual status of the Chinese languages, I think we should still aim to follow most common orthographical usage [for Min Nan] rather than the MoE or any other regulatory body that people tend to ignore in everyday contexts.) —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 23:15, 3 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Are official/recognized variants more valid than unlisted variants? Definitely not if you're a descriptivist. Any language user can use whatever characters they want - but when it comes to deciding the main form of an entry, we should stick to the principles I've mentioned above. The usage note should be sufficient in describing what one governing body has decided on. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I'll say it again: the MoE is not the only authority on Min Nan (in fact, the characters they propose are called 推薦用字 - recommended characters). — justin(r)leung { (t...) 23:21, 3 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Let Wiktionary use the characters the way it wants to, independent of prescriptive bodies and holistically considering the orthography situation 🤔 —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 23:26, 3 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I believe that I have won the argument. In order to facilitate a cooperative environment on Wiktionary, I must temporarily retreat from this argument for the time being. I don't want to get kicked out of here because of one character. Thank you for your work here, which is 99.999% good (in my opinion). This is a very small issue. Change the page however you see fit. I do consider some behavior I have seen as 'bullying', but then again I am a bit of a snowflake. Anyway, thanks for the interesting discussion. It is only through these type of discussions that we can build a truly worthwhile dictionary. Thank you for your time. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 23:31, 3 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your time and your efforts towards the dictionary as well :D — justin(r)leung { (t...) 02:10, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

毋通
After you fixed the module error here, another Indonesian IP (I'm guessing the same person) added some more, causing a another module error. Any chance you could deal with this? I know nothing about Min Nan, and no one has done anything in the two weeks it's been in CAT:E. Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 02:38, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I've reverted their edits. They say it's Nan'an dialect, but it's hard to know if they understand what they're doing. (Besides, our modules don't support Nan'an dialect yet.) — justin(r)leung { (t...) 03:18, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

空兒
Hi. I noticed that currently we display the pinyin for 空 at "Erhua form of..." as kōng which should be kòng. Any ideas how to fix that? ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 06:55, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
 * : Fixed with "|tr=kòng". The templates read the default reading "kōng". --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 07:10, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks Anatoli! ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 07:43, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

perspective on capitalization
I agree that the entry you changed would be capitalized according to some interpretations. But 现代汉语规范词典第3版 p1021 has "pǔtōnghuà shuǐpíng cèshì" (and as I remember, 现代汉语词典 has no entry for it). I don't want it changed back, but I do feel that one day there should be some way for both the lowercase form and uppercase form to be shown. You may be inclined to say "it's a difference without a distinction." Maybe so- but it is a difference. A difference is a difference. Both versions exist. If both versions exist and this is a descriptive dictionary, then why not show both? Of course, in English, capitalization and the lack thereof can be meaningless, but it can also be deadly serious. In my wild fantasy, this dictionary would incorporate all the different perspectives on Hanyu Pinyin and all the romanizations of all Chinese forms, current and historical, wise and foolish. This way the dictionary becomes a truly descriptive dictionary. It would be quite an endeavour to do it all, but I don't think it's impossible, especially if the popularity of Wiktionary increases. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 00:55, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, the reason I wrote it in lowercase was because I didn't have evidence of the capitalized form: "both forms" didn't exist. Yes, the common sense notion would be to go with capitalized letters, but Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian goes out of its way to make everything lowercase, so there must be some logic to it. I just respected what I saw on the page in front of me. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 01:00, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Common sense is dangerous because it is often right but sometimes wrong. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 01:02, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * (take for example the widespread misunderstanding of the proper use of 隔音符號) --Geographyinitiative (talk) 01:04, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * We generally do not follow the capitalization conventions used in 现代汉语规范词典; the editors have their choice, and we have our choice. I, like most other editors here, do not think that it is necessary to show all possible capitalizations, mainly because there is no meaningful difference other than convention. The main purpose of the Pinyin is for pronunciation purposes, not for documenting different romanization conventions. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 02:10, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I think I somewhat understand your perspective, but I have my choice too and I chose to use what I saw in front of me. You, like other editors here, have a position which I may disagree with at times, and that is okay. That doesn't mean you or I are wrong or right, it just means people have opinions. To me, the idea that there is no meaningful difference between the two forms is laughable nonsense (just trying to share my real opinion so that you can know how I really feel- you don't have to agree with my opinion). I do not see Hanyu Pinyin through the prism of its alleged purpose, I see it only for what it is: that is to say, what's on the page. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 02:17, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * It's definitely not about right or wrong in the grand scheme of things — it's simply convention. Consistency is important for dictionaries like this, where many people are collaborating. If you are still unsatisfied with our general conventions, feel free to bring it up again at WT:BP, but if you do not have any good arguments supporting your opinion, I highly doubt the community would change its conventions. Just calling the idea above "laughable nonsense" without any argument is just not convincing.
 * Also, I wasn't talking about Pinyin in general when I was talking about its main purpose here. I was talking about the Pinyin we put under the "Pronunciation" section - its purpose is pretty clear. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 02:58, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * To me, winning the argument is as simple as opening a book and pointing to what's printed there. Why keep pushing against what can be seen in books? I agree Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian's stance is a minority position, so I understand that according to current policy others might want to change the entry. That's not the editing I want to do, and I will do my editing and let others do their own. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 03:12, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * We are an independent dictionary, not a compilation of other dictionaries. There are certain things where we can deviate from what's seen in books because we can have our own conventions that keep our entries consistent across the board. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 03:28, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * All the sudden this seems like an important issue doesn't it? Oh yeah, maybe it is important. And if it is important, maybe we should be inclusive and not exclusive. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 03:33, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * It becomes important if editors can't agree because it affects the quality of the dictionary, but its importance doesn't lead to favouring "inclusivity". It's clear that you are very much for this kind of "inclusivity", which you might think is always a good thing, but for showing all capitalizations for a romanization, I think it's not ok. Other people who use Wiktionary would inevitable ask what the point of having both pǔtōnghuà shuǐpíng cèshì and Pǔtōnghuà Shuǐpíng Cèshì is. It is not quite user-friendly or professional to show them both. Anyway, I really don't want to revisit this issue time and time again. Discussing here only limits the discussion to you and me. Let's bring this discussion to WT:BP to get this blown-up issue out of the way. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 03:51, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
 * The point of having both pǔtōnghuà shuǐpíng cèshì and Pǔtōnghuà Shuǐpíng Cèshì is that both are used and neither needs to be ignored. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 04:16, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Hello again. (I saw your messages on the measure words, and I will label the measure words appropriately from now on- thanks.) Anyway, I wanted to ask you a question if you are interested: why in the heck would the Jianbian Guoyu Cidian pretend that 熱鬧 is pronounced as "ㄖㄜˋ　ㄋㄠˋ"? Maybe if it's the first time someone has ever seen the word and their teacher is reading the word aloud, someone might say ㄋㄠˋ (for emphasis), but even then I doubt it. Do you believe that there are (or ever have been?) human beings on this earth that actually say "ㄖㄜˋ　ㄋㄠˋ" and not "ㄖㄜˋ ˙ㄋㄠ" consistently in their lives? I just can't imagine it, but I guess it could possibly exist, or could have existed at one time maybe?? Do you have any thoughts on this question? It seems utterly 荒唐 to me. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 10:49, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm probably one of those human beings who have been saying rènào consistently lol (but of course, I'm not a native speaker). But to be serious, it's not that 荒唐; I think many people in Taiwan and southern China would pronounce it without 輕聲. It's not quite clear in quick speech, but I think there are some examples here:   . While Jianbian is "prescriptive", it seems to do a good job in reflecting the decline of 輕聲 in Taiwan. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 20:46, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpi0LldsAdE example is extremely clear to me as an example of the ㄋㄠˋ pronunciation- I am going to add that one to the 热闹 page if I can do it. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 20:54, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Similar question with
Hello again- sorry for bothering you, but in this edit you said that the standard pronunciation for Taiwanese Mandarin was jīgū. Was that on the basis of 國語一字多音審訂表? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 09:45, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I think I made that edit a long time ago based on LAC. It's not in Jianbian so I'm not quite sure if we should call it "standard in Taiwan". — justin(r)leung { (t...) 20:35, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * About eight months or so in the past, I came to the conclusion that "standard in" only works if it appears on the (Mainland) 普通话审音表 or (Taiwan) 國語一字多音審訂表. I no longer believe that Jianbian/Chongbian or Xiandai Hanyu Cidian/Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian are the "standards" per se. Do you still think of these dictionaries as the standard? Is there any way to confirm their standard or official status? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 20:46, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I think we can generally treat these dictionaries (except Chongbian) as secondary standards. About Jianbian in particular, see question 3 here. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 20:50, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * "若為教學利用，建請參考依教育部《國語一字多音審訂表》（教科書多音字音讀審定依據）取音之《國語小字典》、《國語辭典簡編本》. " This just supports that 國語一字多音審訂表 is the standard, not that 《國語小字典》or《國語辭典簡編本》is a standard or a secondary standard. Am I wrong? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 22:53, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * That's why I said they're secondary standards, i.e. they aim to follow 國語一字多音審訂表, which is the primary standard. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 23:03, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I guess what I'm saying is, that I would tend to believe that there is only one literal "standard"- the standards issued directly by an authoritative body. The dictionaries that are based on the standard (to a greater or lesser degree) are just dictionaries- they don't qualify as a 'standard' in any sense, secondary or tertiary. Some dictionaries may be authoritatively standard, but I would like direct evidence of that before accepting it. For instance, there's no way that I could change the Shendingbiao today, but I made another successful petition to change the online Chongbian Guoyu Cidian this week. So what do you think of this? Can Jianbian really reach the level of standard like Shendingbiao can? If not, what is the nature of the 'secondary standard' status? General acceptance? Why call it secondary? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 10:12, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
 * 審訂表 and 审音表 are the official standards at the character level. There aren't official standards for the word level, so we would have to depend on dictionaries that follow the character-level standards and treat them as unofficial secondary "standards", especially when we're dealing with 輕聲 or 多音字/破音字. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 02:13, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I guess what I'm trying to say is that we should not lower our standards for what counts as 'the standard'. Only 'the standard' can count as a standard. The other stuff may come pretty close, but it just doesn't reach the level of 'the standard' until there is an official status. The Shenyinbiao does cover some qingsheng situations (very few). If 'the standard' doesn't cover some areas, then the dictionaries are just giving opinions, albeit relatively authoritative (similar to your "second standard"?) opinions. Some of the distinctions I made in the past between the 'Mainland standard' and 'Taiwan standard' are probably unwarranted because I based them on dictionaries alone rather than on a comparison of 審訂表 and 审音表. When there is only a clash between Mainland and Taiwan dictionaries (like with the word ) but not between 審訂表 and 审音表, then I would say that the word 'standard' is just way too strong. A simple 'lnb=Mainland,2nb=Taiwan' is sufficient and (I would think) more proper. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 02:53, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Have I thought this through fully? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 02:54, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * How about calling pronunciations derived from 審訂表 and 审音表 'official in Mainland' / 'official in Taiwan' and then calling pronunciations based only on the authoritative dictionaries 'standard in Mainland' / 'standard in Taiwan'? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 03:04, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * That might be a good idea., any input? — justin(r)leung { (t...) 03:15, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * add more cites and references to entries. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 03:37, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I want to continue this conversation, but I don't know how to proceed and I don't want to mess up Wiktionary. I'm just going to keep editing until this comes up again or new perspectives are brought to light. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 14:02, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

眼神
Hi Justin would you mind checking which sense the Min Nan synonym here 目神 applies to? Thanks. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 02:39, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Not the dialectal sense. I've made the entry for 目神. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 01:51, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks! ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 00:58, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
 * No problem :D — justin(r)leung { (t...) 07:48, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

no colloquial?
Hey- I saw your edit here:. I do feel that 親嘴 is colloquial, especially compared to 接吻. Should I add a 'q'- something like 'q|colloquial'? You seemed to say that to say that this would be against current practice. I'm fine either way, but I think it could be worthwhile to write 'colloquial' there. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 10:05, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm just saying that it's not as common to put, but you could use if you want. You should definitely not put , which would put 接吻 into CAT:Chinese colloquialisms (rather than 親嘴). — justin(r)leung { (t...) 20:58, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I understand now. I was accidentally putting 接吻 into CAT:Chinese colloquialisms by using lb|zh. I didn't realize that this was happening. Thanks. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 01:10, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * No problem! — justin(r)leung { (t...) 01:11, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Pinyin & Bopomofo
I remember someone saying that 'bopomofo' would be confused with 'pinyin' in English and that the dictionary must therefore use 'Zhuyin' to refer to 'Zhuyin Fuhao', but I didn't agree and still do not. Anyway, I would like to say that by the same logic, there is more than one 拼音 and that to assume 'pinyin' must be understood as 'Hanyu Pinyin' is wrong. The English language consensus is on the 'Bopomofo' side for the 'Zhuyin Fuhao' system- since the 80's if I remember the sources I found. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 10:55, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I think that was me, but that wasn't the main argument as far as I can remember. Yes, it is true that "Pinyin" may be confused for other kinds of pinyin, but Pinyin is well-established to refer to Hanyu Pinyin. The main problem was that "Bopomofo" is generally understood to be colloquial, even though probably more commonly used than "Zhuyin". You haven't replied to me at WT:Beer parlour/2019/May, so maybe you forgot about it?, thoughts? — justin(r)leung { (t...) 21:17, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Let's keep the conversation on that page. Yes, I had forgotten where that conversation was happening. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 01:11, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

暴躁
Would you mind checking which sense the Min Nan synonym here refers to? Thanks. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 00:47, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It should be the "irritable" sense, though I'm not sure if the second sense should be a separate sense. Most monolingual dictionaries don't have two senses for this word. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 18:59, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I wasn't sure about that either. We could rfv it. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 05:48, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I think the two senses could probably be combined., what do you think? — justin(r)leung { (t...) 14:39, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The dictionaries I have access to all combine them, so yeah. --Dine2016 (talk) 01:54, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

毋通
You made a minor mistake on undoing my edit, please refer to the university paper "南安方言副词分析" for the evidence. Best regards.
 * First, what we mean by "Quanzhou" is the traditional urban area, which is represented by the Licheng dialect. The Nan'an dialect is not included in what we call "Quanzhou", so technically the paper is irrelevant. Second, I'm not sure how reliable the paper is - it's internally inconsistent. On one hand, it says [m], [n] and [ŋ] are allophones of /b/, /l/ and /g/ on page 3, but on the other hand, it gives 慢 as [man] on page 24, 万 as [man] on page 26, and the contraction of 伓通 as [maŋ] on page 31, which would contradict the fact above. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 05:16, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Help
I added some content to the Chinese section of, and templates in the section of other languages (Japanese, Korean, Okinawan and Vietnamese) now render Lua error: not enough memory. Is there a way to fix it? — RcAlex36 (talk) 03:17, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * A lot of single-character Chinese entries are very close to the memory limit, so it doesn't take much to push them over the edge. I added it to the exclusion list in redlink category, which just barely brought it under the limit. I'm not sure how long that will last, though. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:53, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

果嶺
Hi Justin. I'm just curious whether Cantonese uses this transcription or something else for putting green? ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 21:22, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not too familiar with golf, so I'm not sure. From a quick Google search, I think it's also used in Cantonese, but I'm not sure if it should be gwo2 leng5 or gwo2 ling5 (or both). — justin(r)leung { (t...) 01:46, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks mate! ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 22:25, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

㜆 reading question
Hey Justin,

The 㜆 page gives a definition of "(Wu dialect) mother". If this is indeed a dialectal Wu character, would you know of an actual Wu reading for it? It's in Extension A so it's not high priority or anything. Incidentally, the 迷 page doesn't give matching Mandarin and Cantonese readings (not sure if that matters or not). Cheers! Bumm13 (talk) 11:06, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Although ancient sources say it's a Wu dialect word for "mother", I'm not actually sure if it's used in modern Wu dialects. It seems like it's definitely not used in Shanghainese, which is the only Wu dialect we support in for now. Anyway, I've put in a request for pronunciation. I've also changed the Cantonese pronunciation based on the Jyutping Database; the pronunciation given by Unihan doesn't seem reliable. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 19:57, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

looking for a piece of code
Hey Justin. Could you help me find that piece of code we use to auto-create a Chinese entry from scratch? The one where you can put in multiple definitions, and it will automatically format it and add the simplified form. I lost my old text file. Cheers. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 08:53, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Never mind, I found it, lol. Cheers. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 09:58, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
 * :D — justin(r)leung { (t...) 19:42, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
 * May I have it? 𝕎𝕚𝕜𝕚𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕚𝕠𝕣𝟡𝟡𝟙𝟡 (talk) 12:54, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You can take a look at . — justin(r)leung { (t...) 16:55, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Community Insights Survey
Share your experience in this survey

Hi ,

The Wikimedia Foundation is asking for your feedback in a survey about your experience with and Wikimedia. The purpose of this survey is to learn how well the Foundation is supporting your work on wiki and how we can change or improve things in the future. The opinions you share will directly affect the current and future work of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Please take 15 to 25 minutes to give your feedback through this survey. It is available in various languages.

This survey is hosted by a third-party and governed by this privacy statement (in English).

Find more information about this project. [mailto:surveys@wikimedia.org Email us] if you have any questions, or if you don't want to receive future messages about taking this survey.

Sincerely, RMaung (WMF) 14:34, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Help with Identifying A Centuries Old Illustration with a Vague Chinese Label
Hey Justin, it seems I found an illustration of an unknown couple after browsing through pages of the Boxer Codex (1590). The author of the manuscript is unknown but it is at least likely it was a Spanish author working for the Spanish colonial authorities in Manila around 1590. The artist of his book's illustrations is also unknown, but possibly a Chinese Sangley working in the Philippines at that time due to the Chinese art style and Chinese labels. The labels on top are written in gold with Chinese characters written right to left, with Latin letter transcriptions on the side using Spanish orthography based on what I would most likely assume to be Hokkien transcriptions. Most of the labels of the illustrations in the book, I could decipher and identify with numerous different places across countries around East Asia, Southeast Asia, and a few from Micronesia, but this one I did find the corresponding Chinese characters and entry present here in Wiktionary though the contextual meaning eludes me. I've uploaded the illustration image to Wikimedia and Wikipedia, with that title since I don't know where they could be from. The label on top says "玳瑁 Taipue" or so I think the characters should be. Another book on Google books here that analyzed the Boxer Codex, also records these as the matching characters. 玳瑁 on wiktionary says that this is some sort of tortoise shell or shell of the hawksbill sea turtle. The available Hokkien on the page mentions only the pronunciation from Xiamen, which is "tāi-bō͘", but no mention where the label "Taipue" could match. I'm not sure where these two people could come from. I guessed maybe it meant Taipei and that they were also Taiwanese aboriginals, since the Boxer Codex did have two illustrations of Taiwanese Aboriginals from Keelung and Tamsui which were just a few pages next to this page, and those places were where the Spaniards used to colonize Taiwan at. The man in the picture is shaved with his hair tied, which reminds me like those in the Qing dynasty times but this book was made during Ming dynasty era since there are illustrations of people wearing Ming dynasty era clothes. The man is also wearing a shirt that seems to have the same pattern as the flag of the Sasanid Empire in Persia from around 224–651 AD. I don't know what that's all about, but this one is from 1590 AD. Btw, there are some Spanish descriptions in the succeeding pages which may provide a clue but I can't decipher his handwriting style and don't know no Spanish besides a some guesses lol. Here is a link to the manuscript viewed online. The page with the unknown couple is at page 371/628 of the digital manuscript and on the page itself, someone has written page 182 on the top right. About 8 pages to the left is the illustration for Taiwanese Aboriginals from Tamsui, then 2 pages to right is a very short two line Spanish description, I can only vaguely read something about the island of Luzon. Another 6 pages to the right is the illustration for a couple from Cambodia. Can you see if you can have a go at figuring out what they mean by "玳瑁 Taipue" and where they are from? you can view some other new illustrations that I've recently added in the Foreigners gallery of the Boxer Codex wikipedia page here.--Mlgc1998 (talk) 17:12, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
 * It's unlikely to be Taipei since the name didn't come about until the 1800s AFAICT. Souza and Turley (2016) say in a footnote: "We concur with Boxer’s observation that although there is a district in the interior of the Tonkin called Taipue, this term refers more likely to the people around the Taimei anchorage area of the Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines on Luzon; see BC, 42. The accompanying Chinese characters, 玳瑁 Daimao, mean ‘tortoise shell’. We speculate that such shells were readily available from that site in the early modern period." — justin(r)leung { (t...) 05:54, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks! hmmm, interesting, if they are indeed from Lingayen Gulf by Pangasinan and are not foreigners simply living there, they might be from the prehispanic kingdom of Caboloan in Pangasinan at that time, though it is curious that the man has that kind of hair style and costume, but Caboloan, as the northernmost known Philippine state and among all the other prehispanic philippine states, was that kind of polity that was supposedly said to be "sinified", I guess perhaps this is the result of that, being the intermediary from China as a tributary state that passed goods to Tondo, then Maynila spread it to all other southeast asian non-tributary states of China. His sword seems to also be curiously shaped like the Kampilan long sword.

Batch adding meixian hakka pronunciations
Hi Justin,

First of all I'd like to apologise if this is the incorrect place to contact you. As a semi-native speaker of Meixian Hakka (we've immigrated away), I noticed a lot of the Chinese character pages sorely lacking pronunciation data for Meixian Hakka, usually only have Siyen or no pronunciation at all. Furthermore, the IPA used looks a little strange and different compared to places like https://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/lexi-mf/dialect.php that also use it, for example with the k initial, the IPA looks a little strange (should be same as siyen IPA but ends up looking differently), the finals for 'i' look a little weird too. I wanted to slowly contribute and add entries to fill this void for Meixian Hakka, but I was wondering if you knew of a more efficient way of adding entries rather than opening each Chinese character page entry one-by-one and editing it. Thanks for reading this.


 * Hi, thanks for your contributions on Meixian Hakka so far. We're lacking a native(ish) speaker of Hakka, so it's great to have you on board! There isn't much we can do to make the process faster (without making mistakes). I think it'd be better to add one-by-one to make sure pronunciations are added in the right place. The IPA for Meixian is more of a narrow transcription, e.g. is  before . About 'i' looking weird, there might be two reasons: (1) we use  for what many Chinese source write as , and (2) you might be confusing things like si  and xi  in the romanization. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 05:12, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Reminder: Community Insights Survey
Share your experience in this survey

Hi ,

A couple of weeks ago, we invited you to take the Community Insights Survey. It is the Wikimedia Foundation’s annual survey of our global communities. We want to learn how well we support your work on wiki. We are 10% towards our goal for participation. If you have not already taken the survey, you can help us reach our goal! Your voice matters to us.

Please take 15 to 25 minutes to give your feedback through this survey. It is available in various languages.

This survey is hosted by a third-party and governed by this privacy statement (in English).

Find more information about this project. [mailto:surveys@wikimedia.org Email us] if you have any questions, or if you don't want to receive future messages about taking this survey.

Sincerely, RMaung (WMF) 19:14, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

擺弄
Hi Justin, when you get time, would you mind checking which sense this Min Nan synonym refers to? Thanks! ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 01:59, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
 * It should be good now. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 05:27, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you! ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 06:47, 21 September 2019 (UTC)