User talk:Mahagaja/Archive 1

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haglaz
unprotected as requested ;-)

note that the etymology must use, e.g. , see Reconstructed terms. Robert Ullmann 20:39, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

IPA formatting
We prefer to use IPA as a phonetic pronunication on Wiktionary, instead of phonemic. Phonemic systems require that an explanation is made somewhere of what each phonemic symbol means, whereas a phonetic system follows that default meanings of the IPA symbols. In short, please uses oblique strokes rather than brackets for IPA pronunciations -- they mean very different things. So, you should use and not use. --EncycloPetey 15:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Oblique strokes are conventionally used to show phonemic representations, while square brackets show phonetic representations. If you want a phonetic transcription, then square brackets are the correct form to use. Angr 16:02, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Argh! you're right. I was planning to start gathering the pronunciation policy information together today for Wiktionary:Pronunication, and I guess that makes one more issue I'll have to raise for the community. --EncycloPetey 16:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yiddish translation help
Would you mind adding the Yiidish words to Appendix:Units of time and Appendix:Days of the Week? I'd like to see as many languages as possible listed on those pages. --EncycloPetey 18:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Irish declension templates
Hi ... these really should be named ga- something. Like Template:ga-noun m3 vowel. With lots of languages, we need the naming pattern. Robert Ullmann 12:46, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll move them. Angr 12:47, 3 February 2007 (UTC)


 * "ga-" usually they use - all the way through, (sv-verb-etc) but that isn't necessary. should show all of the Irish templates. Robert Ullmann 12:56, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I forgot the hyphen after the "ga" (see Category:Irish inflection templates). Should I move them again? Angr 12:59, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Renaming AHD?
As one of the people who voiced an opinion in the discussion, I thought you'd like to know that a VOTE has been initiated regarding the name of our "AHD" pronunciation system. --EncycloPetey 06:06, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Irish inflection
It's good to see you back on wikt. I noticed that you've been doing some inflection templates lately, and I just wanted to suggest the page Special:WhatLinksHere/First person as a list of candidates for receiving the upgraded treatment when/if you get it set up. The trick is that they give a bunch of links to a page which shouldn't exist, so that it shows up on pages like User:Connel MacKenzie/Wantedpages. Clearly, this will not lead to the destruction of Wiktionary if left, but if you get bored and are looking for something to do....... Btw, congrats on the Irish phonology FA. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 19:16, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Irish mutation
For Welsh we put the mutation table under a level 4 "Mutation" header (e.g. Cymraeg). For consistency I think Irish mutations should be similarly presented. Thryduulf 17:14, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm, good point. At present though Autoformat will change Mutation headers at L3 to L4 so you should talk to Robert Ullman to get that adjusted. Thryduulf 17:34, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * On the whole I have no issues with Robert, the Norwegian language discussion being an exception. However this is beside the point. If you are bothered, then I think a beer parlour discussion would be beneficial. Thryduulf 17:52, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

fleadh
When a spelling is still in use, it is not obsolete. --EncycloPetey 14:34, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Exactly. This spelling hasn't been in use since the 1940s. Angr 14:34, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Incorrect. It is still in current use, even on the internet. --EncycloPetey 14:37, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * In Irish, or in English? I can only find it used in English with that spelling. Angr 14:38, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I can find it used in both languages very easily with a Google search. --EncycloPetey 14:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * And I can find "heauen" very easily with a Google search too, that doesn't mean it's not an obsolete spelling. Angr 14:41, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The difference is that you are finding "heauen" in documents written hundreds of years ago and simply uploaded onto the web. I am finding fleadh in documents composed recently. It is therefore still in use, and by definition cannot be obsolete. --EncycloPetey 14:50, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Whatever. I'm suggesting a compromise, marking it a nonstandard variant spelling. I supposed it could also be marked as a common misspelling. Angr 14:53, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * If the spelling was standard in the past, then it is not a misspelling. A word is only a misspelling if it has never been an accepted spelling.  If the spelling is old-fashioned, or another spelling is replacing it, then the correct label is . --EncycloPetey 14:58, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * What peculiar definitions of "obsolete" and "archaic" Wiktionary has. To me, a word that was used up till the 1940s but only rarely nowadays is obsolete, while an archaic word is one that completely went out of usage in the 16th century or something. Wiktionary's definition seems to be the other way around. BTW, please don't use rollback on things that aren't blatant vandalism. It's very rude. Angr 15:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * This is not Wikipedia. Rollback is used much more commonly here because we're short-staffed compared to Wikipedia.  Wikipedia has policies about when to use rollback and when to use undo, etc.  We have no such policies.


 * When we set up the context tags of "archaic" and "obsolete", we used obsolete to mean that a word has completely dropped out of the language and are no longer understood by modern speakers. We use "archaic" for words that are now rarely used, but still appear in some works and whose meanings are still largely recognizeable. --EncycloPetey 16:38, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * You don't need to policies to tell you to be civil to other users. Using "undo" and giving a brief explanation will cause a lot less hard feelings than using rollback, whatever project you're in. Those definitions of "obsolete" and "archaic" are fine for lexical items that are/are not still in use, but with spellings it's harder to apply them. I've noticed that Category:German obsolete spellings includes a lot of pre-1996 spellings like daß that are still very much in use (much more so than fleadh!). Spelling is the only area related to language use where prescriptionism can really be taken seriously – when an official body determines that a word is only to be spelled in a certain way from a certain date, then the older spellings have become obsolete, however widely used they still may be. And such spellings may not meet your/Wiktionary's definition of "misspelling", but if a schoolchild writes "fleadh" in Irish class in Ireland or "daß" in German class in Germany, they'll be marked wrong, which certainly sounds like a misspelling to me. Angr 16:51, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * And that's the difference. Wiktionary is not prescriptive; we are descriptive.  If a word is commonly and regularly spelled a certain way or used a certain way, then we include that spellling or use, even if some members of the language community believe it is "wrong".  We are not in the business of promoting or encourage certain practices in a language; we describe the practices that exist. --EncycloPetey 16:57, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * If you want to be purely descriptive and not prescriptive, you'll have to eliminate spellings altogether and list words only by their pronunciations. Spellings are by their nature prescriptive; there's no such thing as "descriptively correct spellings". They're either established by regulatory bodies (as with French and Irish) or by dictionary publishers (as with German and English). In this way, spellings are completely different from grammar, usage, and pronunciation, for which prescriptive decrees can be legitimately ignored (or only given lip service) by dictionaries. Angr 17:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

cur
Just noticed your recent edit to cur and I thought I'd let you know that it's been decided that "Verb form" should not be used as a header, but rather just "Verb." Entries certainly can be sorted under Category:XXX verb forms or XXX verbal nouns or whatever, but the header should not be any of these. Knowing nothing about Irish verbal morphology myself, I didn't think it prudent to screw with what you've done, but at some point that'll need to be changed. However, it might be worth noting that I have used the header "Participle" (only once thus far, at κατακεχυμένος, as I haven't created many grc participles yet). Perhaps Irish requires an additional header. However, if this is the case it really ought to be brought up in the BP. Inasmuch as I know you don't really care for such things, if it's not discussed, someone is just going to switch it to "Verb" at some point. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 06:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * My rule of thumb is that if the AutoFormat bot doesn't tag it with then it's okay. AF tagged it when I used "Verbal noun" as a header, but as far as I've noticed it's never tagged "Verb form" (or "Noun form" either, another header I frequently use). Angr 16:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Irish conjugation discussion
I'm not quite sure why no one has brought this conversation to your attention, but I figured someone ought to. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 03:30, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Angr 14:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

ga lenition srl.
Nice to see you've abstracted this stuff. Eventually I hope to get these sort of functions into MediaWiki too, so that the GRAMMAR magic word actually does something for Irish. I'm sort of working on getting something done for PLURAL (more relevant to interface translation) at the moment, so we'll see how it goes. ☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 05:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

alt/melos
I saw your requested entry for alt, but I don't think your source is right. At μέλος you say "Also see Irish alt, an unrelated word with a similar double meaning", but what double meaning is that? "Member" and "tune, song"? Modern Irish alt doesn't mean either of those things; if anything, it shares the multiple meanings of Latin articulus. It can mean "joint" of the body (especially "knuckle") or of a mechanical device, and it can mean "article" in most of that word's sense (an article of a law or treaty; a newspaper or encyclopedia article; a grammatical article). The usual word for "member" in both meanings of μέλος (member = limb, member of a group) in Irish is ball, while a tune or melody is fonn. Angr 17:34, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

P.S. At I see that Old Irish alt can mean "meter" (of poetry) and is attested once in the compound marb-alt (marb = dead) meaning "death dirge". That's the closest thing to a musical meaning for alt I could find. Angr 17:40, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I have removed the info from μέλος, thanks very much for taking the time to look into that. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 17:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

dúlamán
Added this word (after seeing this, by the way). Occurs to me it might need to be inflected somehow. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:17, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! You are a font of knowledge! bd2412 T 18:45, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

tola
Thanks for sorting out the Devanagari for me, I was just in the process of looking for someone who could do it! Physchim62 13:38, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem! Angr 13:38, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

"Pingine Bána"
Hi Angr! I'm after googling the above as a phrase and came across this which you edited: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pingine. I'm therefore wondering would it be more correct to say 'Pingin Bána' if 'Pingine' is the genitive singular? I'm looking for the correct modern Irish for "white money", which occurs here as '...ar an m-bairgin h-i c-Connachtaibh, no sé pinginne bána isin Midhe'. Thanks! 86.44.44.218 15:19, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In "sé pingin(n)e bána", "pingine" isn't genitive, it's the plural form that's used after numbers (in this case, "sé"). It literally translates to "six white pence". Angr 21:43, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. But if there is no money figure before it would 'pingin bán' be the straight nominative case for "white pence/pennies"/"white money"? Or is bán qualified? 86.44.44.218 01:49, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm unfamiliar with the expression "white money". (At Wikipedia, it's a redirect to argent, but the article has no explanation of the term.) The nominative singular would be "pingin bhán" (with bán lenited to bhán because it follows a feminine singular noun); the nominative plural would be "pinginí bána". Literally these would mean "a white penny" and "white pennies/white pence"; whether they also refer to "white money" (whatever that is) I don't know. Where is your quote from? It looks like Middle Irish. Angr 12:39, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much, Angr, for that very clear explanation. It is greatly appreciated. 86.44.44.218 16:49, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks again. Just missed your question and the extract is from the annals of the four masters and is referring to the time they took the silver out of the Irish money in the 1540s. Here's the original from celt: http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100005E/text005.html (See M.1545.9). Buíochas! 86.44.44.218 16:57, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

העלפֿט
You added this word as a translation s.v. half and added the Yiddish entry also. Are you sure this is correct? I ask because I'm fairly sure it's not. העלפֿט AFAIK means "helps" or "help" (I'm not sure which), whereas "half" AFAIK is האַלב (or maybe האלב, but pronounced with an אַ anyway).—msh210 ℠  22:52, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hm, scratch that. Googling reveals that העלפֿט seems to have both meanings. Sorry I bothered you.—msh210 ℠  22:55, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem. I assume that the difference between the two parallels the difference between German Hälfte and halb: the first is a noun and the second is an adjective. Angr 06:23, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

ipa
sofast,tx!!:D[my ownref.=notexhaustiv,so ipreferd askin'{i/case 'twas a pron.-variant]-tx'gain!:）-- voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 07:39, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Not a variant pronun; what was there isn't even pronounceable. Angr 10:49, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

lol-ta!:)--史凡 voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 11:12, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Quotations
FYI. :-)  —Ruakh TALK 20:22, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * TLDR. There's little point in following formatting guidelines here anyway, since no matter what you do, User:AutoFormat pops up within minutes to clean up after you. Angr 06:26, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

OCS
I'm very excited to see some OCS-related activity on my watchlist :D As you've already found out, most (99%) of our OCS entries were created before the Unicode 5.1 was officialized, and have to be rectified accordingly. You can see on Appendix:Old Cyrillic script, and esp. on the corresponding talkpage, some of the issues that that Unicode 5.1 resolved, and some that it introduced, discussed by Mzajac and I. Now we have separate code point for jery, but apparently the single letter ѹ should be replaced with digraph оу (not a particularly bright decision, if you ask me).

The inflection templates for OCS nouns that I created are barely used and some unfinished. I had in mind of making them all dual-scripted, by adding sc=Glag you can use the same template also for spellings in Glagolitic script. Generally all the OCS entries should be in both scripts, regardless whether they were attested in the Cyrillic or Glagolitic part of the canon. And also in the translations, both scripts should be added, usually in separate lines such as: If you have Glagolitic fonts installed, you can type Glagolitic letters on this awesome Glagolitic typewriter. In the entries themselves, Glagolitic/Cyrillic spellings should be mutually linked in the ===Alternative spellings=== header. --Ivan Štambuk 22:08, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Old Church Slavonic:
 * Cyrillic: ...
 * Glagolitic:...
 * Ugh, I have no intention of adding Glagolitic forms myself, but when they already exist, I add them to the translation list. I didn't know ѹ had been deprecated though. Do we ever want to use ꙋ? Angr 19:35, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * No, I think we should ignore the existence of ꙋ (like we ignore three different letters for /i/ with no functional difference among them, and simply use и). That, of course, for our lemmatization purposes: maybe one day somebody might wanna add them as alt. spellings, as they were actually attested in the MSS. --Ivan Štambuk 19:54, 20 August 2009 (UTC)


 * A long time ago (in 2006), somebody has created on fr.wikt a few entries for OCS in Latin characters: aje (egg), malū (bad), mazati (spread), toplica (brook). We don't know what to do with them, what's their status. Are they transliterations or something? Lmaltier 12:30, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, those are transliterations. I'd move them to аицє (as far as I know *аиє isn't actually attested in OCS, but I could be wrong about that), малъ, мазати, and (if its existence can be confirmed) топлица. Angr 12:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. When nobody knows the language on a site, it's difficult... Lmaltier 14:08, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

nícon
Not sure whether I agree or disagree about it being a "Particle". Take a look at our definition of particle:. --EncycloPetey 21:50, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, when I saw that all the other Goidelic negative particles (ní, cha) were being called particles, I sort of figured nícon should be called one too. I know negative particles are traditionally called "adverbs", but that seems kind of tenuous. "John didn't go to the store" isn't really a modification of "John went to the store", as it isn't adding to the meaning of the unmodified sentence (the way "John went reluctantly to the store" and "John went to the store yesterday" do). —Angr 12:08, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, the LSJ considers to be a particle.  Also, I tend to agree with Angr's logic, which seems to make these types of words fall squarely into the "does not obviously belong" bit.  Truth be told, I think our def's a bit loose for particle....but anyway.  -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 13:29, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Thurneysen's Grammar of Old Irish also calls ní and nícon particles. That's really good enough for me. —Angr 13:37, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Irish pronunciation data
I'm curious where you typically get pronunciation data for Irish. I note that you frequently have data for multiple dialects and occasionally simple alternative pronunciations that I'm unaware of. For my own part, I'm mostly only aware of Munster pronunciations and was hoping you could suggest some additional sources of information. —Leftmostcat 12:57, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * For Connacht I often use Die araner mundart (Aran Islands) and for Ulster I often use A Dialect of Donegal. The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies has published a whole lot of descriptions of individual dialects, which I use too; many of them are listed at Irish phonology, Munster Irish, Connacht Irish, and Ulster Irish. —Angr 12:46, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Diacritical marks

 * Category:Diacritical marks contains English terms defined as names of diacritical marks ("acute accent", "tilde", "umlaut"...) and language-specific versions of itself
 * Category:Diacritical marks by language contains language-specific categories of terms defined as diacritical marks ("´", "~", "¨"...)

None of them should be the parent category of the other, at least per the consensus of always separating clearly separable "topical" and "lexical" categories that way. Category:Nouns by language is not a member of Category:Nouns.

If you want links between the two categories that involve diacritical marks, you can use something like "See also:" for that purpose. --Daniel 17:38, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, I didn't know it worked like that. I would have assumed that Category:Nouns by language was a subcat of Category:Nouns. That's certainly where I would go looking for it. —Angr 21:13, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Britain and Ireland
FYI, you recently took part in an RFD on Britain and Ireland. I've opened a thread on the term in the tea room. Essentially, I am providing citations to support its inclusion (both ones that define the term as a synonym to British Isles and that demonstrate its use beyond a sum of parts of Britain and Ireland).

Regards, --Rannpháirtí anaithnid 21:47, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Votes/2011-07/Categories of names
The vote Categories of names is going to end soon, after receiving contributions of only a few people. (it proposes a number of renamings, in this pattern: Category:en:Rivers to Category:English names of rivers)

It would benefit very much from your vote, even one of abstention.

I assume you would be interested in this subject, as I am sending this message to everyone who didn't vote yet, but participated in the discussion that introduced the vote, and/or in this poll, which received far more attention than the vote, and is closely related to the proposal in question.

Thank you. --Daniel 16:42, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Adminship.
Hi Angr,

I just realized (due to your GP request) that you're not an admin. So surprising! I would be happy to nominate you, if you'd like.

—Ruakh TALK 14:20, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Okay, sure! And thanks for thinking of me. —Angr 15:03, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * O.K.; please add to your user-page, and go to Wiktionary:Votes/sy-2011-10/User:Angr for admin to accept the nomination. :-)   —Ruakh TALK 15:38, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Your vote has passed, you are an Admin. Please add your name to WT:Admin. Also, see Help:Sysop tools. —Stephen (Talk) 00:40, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks Stephen! —Angr 09:47, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations, sir! bd2412 T 13:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

pesher
Please do not remove syllable break information from English pronunciations. Also, vowel length is phonemic in UK English, so removing that information significantly alters the pronunciation. --EncycloPetey 16:03, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Syllable breaks are not unambiguous in English, especially after so-called "checked" or "lax" vowels, so writing /pɛʃ.ɚ/ is misleading at best and flat-out wrong at worst. And while vowel length is indeed phonemic in UK English, the unstressed schwa at the ends of words like letter isn't long, so putting a long mark there is a mistake. —Angr 16:24, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

planta obediente
thank you! =)Lucifer 04:48, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Basic Burmese verbs
Hi,

I wonder if you could please add translations for some basic Burmese verbs - to sing, to walk. Also, please check my translations for buy, sell. --Anatoli (обсудить) 23:09, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I have added a few most basic words to Category:Translation_requests_(Burmese) - be, give, have, put, send, speak, take, work still missing Burmese translations. Please add when you have time and you can find these words in your dictionary or know them. No rush but I think they are very important. :) --Anatoli (обсудить) 06:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, I'll do what I can. "Be" can be tricky in Burmese, I think, and I'm not sure it even has a word for "have" (a lot of languages don't). —Angr 18:31, 4 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll check my Burmese phrasebook and some other places later on. Yes, "to be" and "to have" but please note my observation, even if some languages normally use a different structure, Russian, Arabic usually don't use verbs to express both, many languages don't use "be" with adjectives or even with nouns, they have the word for "to own", "to possess". Having a short note describing how it works is also a translation, e.g. * Burmese: (no verb is used to express this) or smth. --Anatoli (обсудить) 22:48, 4 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi, please check my findings - to have - (ra̰, ya̰, ja.)?, to be  (hpji', pʰyiʔ) and  (shi.?) both to be/to have? I haven't checked my phrasebook yet. --Anatoli (обсудить) 02:24, 5 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm struggling with the script. This site seems to have examples of both but there is some problem with the fonts and the romanisation is non-standard. I don't know if there is a good support for the Burmese script on the internet, since the words on one site doesn't always match the other. Searching for example phrases is nearly impossible. --Anatoli (обсудить) 02:37, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
 * No, there isn't much good support for Burmese on the Internet. A lot of sites don't use Unicode at all but rather ad-hoc internal fonts, e.g. and, and a lot of sites (such as the one from sayaag you linked to above) use pre-5.1 Unicode, which doesn't work properly. (Unicode's first attempt at encoding Burmese was a miserable failure, so they did it all over again in 5.1. Unfortunately, a lot of websites haven't made the jump to the new version yet.) And there is no standard romanization; even the BGN/PCGN we use here is modified from the original one, since the original one doesn't capture all the linguistically relevant distinctions of Burmese. —Angr 09:10, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

WT:RFC
I'd appreciate your chiming in. &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 17:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)