User talk:Palaestrator verborum/2017

Your change at غذاء
Does this change seems redundant? Since this is English Wiktionary, I think we don't have to use for English words. I'm not sure myself. -- Heydari (talk|contibs) 17:32, 13 October 2017 (UTC)


 * The admins do that too, I copy that behavior, I even believe they scold people for not using it, and I see that the “better-looking” articles tend to use the template. Also, note that it puts you the English section immediately while there might be a large table of content on top of a page. Palaestrator verborum (talk) 17:39, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Okay i see. I'll to that too from now on. Thanks. -- Heydari (talk|contibs) 17:53, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not a fan of it, and I don't do it in entries. —Rua (mew) 17:57, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Same here, but it doesn't hurt to do it. —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 02:32, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
 * In Votes/2016-07/Using template l to link to English entries, an overwhelming majority oppose that kind of switch as for l. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:35, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

The case of identical (but different) letters
Hello. I had to move your entry and thought I'd give you an explanation of what happened. The final yā' in Persian is dotless, and thus appears identical to Arabic's alif maqṣūra. However, they are different characters and computers will recognise them as being different. You created an Arabic entry on a page with a Persian entry, presumably because you searched for it and got automatically redirected to that page by the software. Other things to watch out for are that initial and medial yā' look identical in Arabic and Persian, but they have different codepoints (so that the difference in final form described above can be displayed). The same deal happens with kāf, different codepoints but identical in initial and medial forms. Now that you know, you can watch out for this. Thanks! —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 18:03, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I know about this encoding calamity, just after hours of working this is easily forgot, especially as there is no notice about redirection and that encoding is of course irksome to think about (it did not have to be encoded that way, Unicode could have forced Persians to have the two yāʾs, and to have two kāfs on their keyboards; there are much more painful double encodings which Unicode has let through). The etymology of the Persian has to be removed though anyway because of using which causes categorization as an Arabic word, and  has to be added, which is why I originally opened the Persian page for editing.
 * Can’t those fuzzy matches be implemented in a way whereby people at least get a message about redirection, at least by an account setting? I remember more such messages from earlier MediaWiki versions. It is a step backward to hide these redirections. Palaestrator verborum (talk) 18:22, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how easily it could be changed, but after all, we're doing this for the readers, and they are well served by those automatic redirections — it is only us editors that get burned by it. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 18:30, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course I have been duped into believing that that Persian page is usable for the Arabic, as I have accessed it over Category:Arabic terms belonging to the root ج ر ي in which it was included by wrong template use. 😫. Feel free to propose a setting for displaying the actual query term so that attention is evoked and it is easier to create pages, or where is it correct for me to propose such things? After all, if you search a term via the upper right corner search mask and get redirected, there is no link for creating the actual term, so it can be argued that this has caused less created pages; I create such entries by editing the URL or by double-using the search mask. I liked it more when there were two search masks, one in the left and one in the right top, where the left one redirected and the right one just searched, but now one has to start an empty search to get to the actual search without redirects to pages matching the search term. I do not know to which extent other people are vexed by it, by I have been disconcerted innumerable times by it since it has been introduced (never having been working at a Wikimedia project until this month, so somebody has had a wrong concept of reader-friendlyness by merging the two search masks). Palaestrator verborum (talk) 18:48, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Arabic in Hindi etymologies
Hi, could I bother you with some Arabic entries we need? Category:Hindi terms derived from Arabic links to quite a few unmade pages. Great work on the Arabic entries btw. —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 02:39, 3 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, it’s a list I can pick out entries from if I am saturated from reading Arabic news. But Category:Hindi terms derived from Arabic does not link to entries in need specifically, so I need to click around more, and there is also Category:Arabic entry maintenance I am invited to rummage. But I am merry that with Arabic I am working on a kind of dead end of etymology where foreign derivations rarely emerge and are either obviously resolvable or exotic incidents. It would have been harder to create German entries even though there I can make all from memory, as in Arabic I only have to write “from the root ” and all runs automatically after entering a few chunks (I am a bit flabbergasted how Serbo-Croatian entries yet need the input of all inflectional forms by hand, how could Ivan Štambuk spit them out as on a conveyor belt?).
 * I can’t read any Indian script though, shunned yet to open the Pandora’s box, and I ask myself how fast can I learn one in a whimsy? It usually takes me two days to learn any alphabetic script (as I have learnt reading Syriac for the etymologies the foregone month and Arabic before), but peradventure there are many grammatic peculiarities interwoven in the relationships of Indian languages with their scripts. It is on the plan anyway for me to learn one or more of those Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages, however this could get too far, and arguably I should rather take advantage of the years coming conveying the words that I will needs learn to Wiktionary. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 03:32, 3 November 2017 (UTC).
 * "I am a bit flabbergasted how Serbo-Croatian entries yet need the input of all inflectional forms by hand, how could Ivan Štambuk spit them out as on a conveyor belt?": ahah, you've got a colourful way of speaking! I think he was against the idea of templatizing inflections for any language, and preferred encoding everything manually to be sure there weren't any mistakes (+ he wanted to store these data somewhere to be used cross-linguistically, to be easily retrieved by each language version of wiktionary). --Barytonesis (talk) 22:00, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
 * (I enjoy your writing style as well) Yes, it's not the best list to tell the truth. I think you should try to obtain a frequency list; they can be really boring to work through but nevertheless they are a good way to find common words that are missing. I have also found language learning sites like Memrise (which has 7 "classes" worth of Arabic apparently) useful for mining topical vocabulary.
 * It should be noted all of the Indic scripts are nearly identical in arrangement and inventory; they all originate from the which was used for early Classical Sanskrit and vernacular Prakrit. It is not difficult to learn them all once one learns one; for example, my native script is Devanagari, and I learned Gujarati and Gurmukhi in a few weeks or so (meaning I can read both from memory at a decent pace). If you were to learn an Indo-Aryan language, I would suggest Urdu, since it uses the Arabic script, and furthermore is grammatically identical to Hindi (much like "Serbian" and "Croatian"). —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 13:29, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * For Arabic word frequencies, I have access to the 2011 work of Buckwalter & Parkinson A Frequency Dictionary of Arabic. Core Vocabulary for Learners from the series Routledge Frequency Dictionaries. That series does not seem to include any Indian language dictionaries though, and I guess I learn the script before working through any frequency list.
 * But I have given up all belief in corpus data. It always surprises me what is not included or to which topics frequency dictionaries are slanted. Just now I want to create a phrasebook entry I need to vomit, and I am surprised how little common manifestations of this everyday phrase I know from actual Russian speech are actually included on the web. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 13:45, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I have seen that series before, you're right, they have nothing for Indian languages. Anyways, sometimes the topical slant of corpora can be used to one's advantage; I have in the past used a corpus including solely news website to find words specific to politics and current events. Nevertheless, they do have the problems you mentioned. —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 20:22, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

I need to vomit
Hello,

In the topic above you said "Just now I want to create a phrasebook entry I need to vomit, and I am surprised how little common manifestations of this everyday phrase I know from actual Russian speech are actually included on the web". Which phrase did you look for? "меня́ рвёт"? It's quite common but stress marks are not used and ё is usually written as е. Also, the "меня́ рвёт" normally means that it's already happening, you're vomiting whereas "меня́ тошни́т" means you're feeling the urge. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 23:35, 4 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I was for example thinking about “мне надо рыгать” or analogous with блевать. Maybe we speak funny Russian in Germany (these are all true, have fun in attesting these words!)?
 * What I originally imagined as the concept for translation is a situation where one needs to puke fleetly (thus “urge”), where it is “beginning to happen”, and says a sentence for example because one needs the driver to halt. I am not sure that “тошнит” means that, meseems that it just means that one has бардак в животе, not necessarily that one will vomit. However maybe the line can not be drawn anyway; the point is to list lines that one would say to excuse oneself expressing a weighty reason. I hesitated a bit to add a Latin translation because I knew some possibilities what the Romans or the humanists would say to articulate their sick stomach, but it is hard to say what they regularly used in that kind of situation. It is a bit problematic of course if the languages tend to replace the most direct words because they are too evocative. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 00:04, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. "меня́ тошни́т" would be the most appropriate phrase in this case. It expresses the urge to vomit, not when your stomach is upset or something. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:21, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Directional points in Arabic
This is just for your personal information as to why the Arabs have based their directional concepts facing the sunrise.

One of the easiest points of reference when determining direction has always been the sun; even to this day without further technology, one who is knowledgeable of the sun's position and its significance can determine their bearings. For most ancient people, the Semitic people included, they viewed the sun as on a journey, traveling across the earth once daily to repeat the journey once again. For most it looked like a linear arch from horizon to horizon, a journey that started in the east. With the sun rising from the east this is the first marker, the first direction determined order-wise, the setting point following second; the sun naturally appears to travel from that point to that point, from that direction to the next one, the second one, westward. The other directions, "Sh-M-L" and "Y-M-N", meaning left and right, north and south respectively, are then laid to mean left and right of the suns path.

This is not actually exclusive to Semitic thinking, we use the same phraseology when we say "to orient ourselves", Online Etymological Dictionary states the following:

orient (v.): c. 1727 "to arrange facing east," from French s'orienter "to take one's bearings," literally "to face the east" (also the source of German orientierung), from Old French orient "east," from Latin orientum (see Orient (n.)). Extended meaning "determine bearings" first attested 1842; figurative sense is from 1850. Related: Oriented; orienting.

The Latin "oriens" itself meant rising, appearing, originating, and as a noun it means the quarter or direction where the sun rises, the east, as well as holding the meaning of "day" metonymically. This is the etymology as well for the word "origin", all stemming from "east" the original starting direction of the sun's path.

East has held the historical significance of being first, of being the gateway; the bible records for us that the tabernacle of Moses also had its gate on the eastern side, a thing paralleled in the temple in Jerusalem. Again this is not exclusive in any capacity to the Semitic people alone, orienting a building, orienting oneself all attempt to mirror the sun's path, establishing its start and finish foremost, with its left and right sides falling north and south respectively.

--Professor I.; 71.102.96.201 20:01, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Miscellanea arabica
Gratias tibi, amice. --Rerum scriptor (talk) 23:07, 15 November 2017 (UTC)


 * sive forma pluralis si plurale tantum extat difficilest sin significationem totam ex classicis excerpam quum verbum hoc iam non usitatum sit, ergo non in dictionariis capitalibus inveniatur. Sed iam  topper facio. Sed mesonyctio non omnia. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 23:24, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * hercle factum est. Usus inveniendus in ttt sparsus remotusque et ordo descensionum herculanus est. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 03:09, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Causa ipsa est cur haec verba te rogavi addere! Gratias tibi quod fecisti. Alia res: animadverti dici ab Marocano verbo  ortum esse. Estne dialectica versio classici verbi ? --Rerum scriptor (talk) 12:12, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Probabile est et hŏc ipso loco conscribere, sed in confesso est me minime dialectos tractare posse. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 15:48, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Wyang
On Votes/sy-2017-11/Desysopping CodeCat aka Rua, Wyang is not the subject matter. The subject matter is desysopping CodeCat/Rua and the mitigating proposals such as adding CodeCat/Rua to template editor group. Wyang is not the proposer of the vote and is not the only supporter. The posts to the page are meant to inform the discussion about whether to desysop or not, and what alternative actions to take. Intentionally long-winded posts not contributing to the objectives of the discussions are, obviously, detrimental, and waste time and attention of those readers who have the courtesy to read through the material posted only to find that it contains not much relevant. That, in any case, is my view. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:20, 17 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I was on topic though and mentioned Wyang for contrast. You tell me things that I already know. The sad thing comes by Wyang’s four-word insult. This serves elaborating another example, and it is also disconcerting for me that I have to repeat myself, but this is the usual philosopher’s business (to write books of repetitions for people who have it yet hard to understand), and I at least have made clear why I answer again and posted a short answer for those for whom that all is too high as the third paragraph.
 * Also I think that it is actually a factual and normative necessity to be able to express as much as one does think. It is dangerous if sysops read things into messages that aren’t stated and unworthy if they say things for people that these have visibly already expressed or understood. (It does not have a side-meaning here to rebuke you, as you are not repeating yourself, you just want to make sure and it’s okay.) The opposite of this behavior appears Rua to me, by always expanding detailled plans, that is the point. Worse than acting without consensus as Rua is accused and is no in-depth malfeasance is being unable to distinguish what people consent to or where and how much consentment is possible. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 15:48, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Re: "Also I think that it is actually a factual and normative necessity to be able to express as much as one does think". I am not sure what the sentence means; "factual and normative necessity" seems most peculiar a phrase to me. In any case, it is not necessary to dump all one's thought that is marginally relevant to the discussed subject into a particular discussion, nor is it worth recommending. Rather, it is considerate to the reader's attention to choose more carefully what to post and what to omit. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:06, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * That means the facts themselves as well as the expectations coming from the rules or the other people require appropriate extent of speech: That one opens up as clearly as one can, of course preferably only referring to things relevant in the cause – see, my message was too short; better be long than sorry. I am someone who could not care less to contrive quarrels between parties but who is interested in stating the truth so one can act upon the truth instead of interpersonal struggles. However in that Chinese header topic and else one can see that Wyang endeavors otherwise, catching up any formality to dispute in personal affairs. A caricature from which people could learn. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 16:24, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * How can facts themselves require you to do something? --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:28, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Things being entangled necessitating a convoluted exposition. Though you might argue that this has been a of me as that is a different kind of  than the requirements by persons and the requirements coming from rules – heck, the ontology of the rules makes this my exposition image unsavory: The facts require, persons require, rules as well require? Well, you see how I can be so long. If one thinks that far, the measurements are comparatively – as compared with the speeches people are used to – dainty. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 16:47, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Does not make much sense to me. In general, I have to read your posts multiple times, and I am still left with the impression that I do not understand what you are saying. I won't be looking up obscure terms that you sprinkle the speech with to make it harder to understand. You have the option of writing in such a way that other people can understand; I doubt most people will pay enough attention to writing in deliberately incomprehensible style reminiscent of continental pseudo-philosophy. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:55, 17 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I have told you this before: needlessly long posts will only help to ensure that people do not take you seriously. I want to remind you that it is only for your own good. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 16:51, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * But why shall people take me serious? As I said I am interested in stating the truth so one can act upon the truth instead of interpersonal struggles without regard to the person, and if they don’t read serious things, that is their economical decision. But epistemology is serious: Most struggles that can arise on Wiktionary are founded on epistemological inerudition. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 16:59, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Great. Now, how do you know that "Most struggles that can arise on Wiktionary are founded on epistemological inerudition"? --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:03, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Because things not having been thought through sufficiently, isn’t it? Unless of course people are epistemologically erudite and do not care so they do not appreciate carefully. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 17:24, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Does it mean you had a look at the actual "struggles" (disagreements between editors?) that took place in Wiktionary, and by observing them, you arrived at the discussed conclusion? --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:34, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Mixed. The conclusion is a posteriori as well as a priori. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 17:41, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I happen to think it cannot be a priori (in the Kantian sense) since it is an empirical factual hypothesis about human behavior, one that I think is false. In particular, I do not think that if editors start investigating such questions as whether knowledge is justified true belief, there will be fewer disputes among editors. Most of the disputes I was involved in were not about facts but about attitudes, such as whether consensus should reign supreme, or whether Wiktionary should avoid prescriptions. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:48, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * These questions about attitudes, if they aren’t mere subjective desires, are questions about how to recognize what would be economical to maintain, i.e. epistemology.
 * As concerns Kant, he exhibits a Privatsprache as rarely seen. Classically, scholastically, “a posteriori” and “a priori” are just “to conclude from an effect a judgement” and “to conclude from a reason or cause an effect”. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 18:14, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * There are no questions about attitudes involved; attitutes are involved. The attitude "the Wiktionary project should be ruled by me as far as possible regardless of consensus" is an attitude, and disagreements about it cannot be resolved by any inquiry into how we know things. The dispute is not about what is economical; to the contrary, using consensus based processes based on extensive discussion and involvement is not the most economical method in the world. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:24, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * In that understanding of “attitudes”, it is desirable that nobody ever has any attitudes because they are defined as not caring about what processes in the lexicon are economical but what anyone likes to have for himself only. But I do not care about the definition of “attitudes” as this is no word a thinker uses; the point I have made is that the discussions center about what can be maintained and what can be readable which has many epistemological prerequisites. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 18:48, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Now you're talking sheer nonsense. The distinction between facts and attitudes is well known. When confict arises about whether we should decide via consensus, the dispute is not about what is maintainable or readable. Thinkers do use the word "attitude": https://plato.stanford.edu/search/searcher.py?query=attitude is a search in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and finds e.g. articles Propositional Attitude Reports and Fitting Attitude Theories of Value. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:32, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * That link supports what I have said about the usage of “attitude”. The uses of this word diverge very far from each other and from how you have used it. The sheer range of different uses shows that the word “attitude” does not at all qualify mental dispositions. Some examples: We are told, first, that we should not trust our sensations and opinions, but should adopt an unopinionated attitude.; An attitude ascription ‘S Vs that p’ is true iff ‘S’ designates a person; Physicalism as an Attitude). Much of it is also about ethics. Certainly the relation of people to facts is much more complicated than that it could be described as “attitudes”. The attitude "the Wiktionary project should be ruled by me as far as possible regardless of consensus" is a caricature that you would not even know about if someone held this as the exact reason of his acting on Wiktionary. But I have talked about what the consensus-building processes center around: What the community can maintain, i.e. if we can take upon us the responsibility for having thesauri in languages other than English, or if this or that template should be obligatory or recommended or indifferent, or what layout changes can be borne. It is economical to discuss these things through until people are sure: As I said, it would be comparatively vain just to persuade people to accept things they do not understand. Using the word “attitude” as you have done is something that blurs the distinction of how much people are sure or they agree as it is again something aimed only at superficial conciliation, trying to avoid to express what people actually desire from the project and the concepts of how the objects of desire can be achieved. Of course, by voting without elaborate reasonings these things can be hidden. I don’t forbid you to use the word attitude but you should be aware of that there can be made a varying quantity of distinction. How much of distinction is appropriate, can hardly be said in general but depends on the cases. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 14:29, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * In case you forgot what you wrote:
 * "Obviously Wyang cannot think how I do, for in that case memorizing all those Chinese tones &c. were not so much bearable. But this capacity is begotten by the very same trait which I have poked. The reluctance to do anything than to repeat what other people have recited, the expectation that everything can be cut into atoms of ideas conveyed instead of being a twisted hypotaxis, which is why in that post where I appeared to side with Rua he does nothing than to repeat the things which I and others already have said instead of treating the truth behind the words. A useful quality to pass school, eminence in being a normie, but of course completely dishonest."
 * Ignoring the blatant personal attacks, this obviously does not help your case in any way nor does it contribute much to the discussion. —AryamanA (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान) 17:57, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Why do you think I forgot what I wrote? Apparently what I say is commemorative that people keep repeating me. I do not see personal attacks there, I do not even know about the concept of personhood. But the point of that paragraph is that it is from factual presuppositions rather impossible that he can pursue the same way of thinking. Just a hugely different history of a man. This disappointed me too, but the world is rotten. Am I at fault by being pessimistic? Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 18:14, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I just find it ironic that someone judges another for not being kind and then posts this kind of comment. —AryamanA (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान) 18:29, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * To say of someone that they are "completely dishonest" looks like a personal attack to me, especially when made in a venue where that person's qualities (tall, honest, smart) do not need to be discussed at all. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:32, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * No, because honesty is not a quality but a behavior in case. People choose to be dishonest, and that Wyang has chosen that is what I claimed. Nothing about the person because I do not know it.
 * Also, how can you say that I “judge another for not being kind”? I said enough that one should care less about amenity of the features but one should care about depth of thought. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 18:48, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * You also claim that you don't know anything about Wyang the person, so how can you possibly judge the depth of thought? You also seem to have some Orientalist ideas that to me are frankly appalling. —AryamanA (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान) 19:22, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The deep of thought that can be extracted from his expressions of course. I cannot refer to anything else, as I do not know how he behaves in RL – and in consideration of this it is rather impossible to attack the person. Also I do not know why it should be bad to be an Orientalist. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 19:44, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I was confused for a second as well, but I don't think Aryaman is using "Orientalist" in an ideological way; "your Orientalist ideas" = "your ideas about the Orient". I'm pretty sure he approves of your interest about the Orient, he just thinks you have some wrong ideas about it. --Barytonesis (talk) 20:33, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I didn't mean it like that, don't get me wrong, I really appreciate your Arabic work and I liked that you were interested about Hindi and Indian languages, and even went through the work of showing me that spices website. That's why I thought it was strange that you specifically mentioned memorizing "Chinese tones" &c, which I would expect from someone less familiar with "the East". Orientalism (as I have heard of it) often refers to Europeans studying the East in a good-intentioned but patronising manner (like that blog post mentions "superficial, politicised Orientalism associated with colonial administration"). —AryamanA (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान) 20:48, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * : Oh well, it is of course nothing to criticize that one memorizes Chinese tones. But it does have an influence one oneself to deal with any language, and language learning restructures the mind, as I think nobody can deny. And I think it can cause a bias against structures that are different, which could for example be the cause for a not wanting to read messages of my multiplex structure. If it is not a cause, it can at least be an indicator of preferences.
 * I shall not be blamed for people being overstrained by my messages as it is in their interest to be enlightened or maybe to be not, and then not also my fault that mistakes are made which I have warned against. It seems to me that I have shown much thoughts about page layout and that’s good: I find it does not even matter that under this discussion about semantic relations under senses what I have written is not read. Many things are researched and become later relevant.
 * In sum: Kindness is ephemeral. Many people try to be agreeable. But I try to expose the truth. Because what accomplishment is that if people agree with me for superficial reasons, and no conviction has been achieved? Then the disagreements persist concealed. It’s cheap to vote, especially against or for a person’s status, and to keep hidden what has lead one to this. I do not vote nor scold people because of their being warm or cold but because I hope that in the future – not necessarily immediately – it leads to mankind being more reasonable. Maybe that is also why I abstented in the vote to retract Rua’s sysop status: I could not bear being wrong knowing beforehand that I know barely anything of her future behavior. Most people have not realized that they know nothing and make a bet more than they vote by relying on factors like warmth. Such group dynamics is what makes financial crises. And it leads to peoples killing peoples like in Imperialist times because people are patronizing when they do more than they know. I do not do more than I know, visibly, as I am less bold in the mainspace. But it pays to think things through, which happens on Wiktionary on the discussion pages so others do not need to invent the same thoughts – or if it does not pay, I have only lost some time. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 21:51, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Arabic Swadesh list
Hello. There are several discrepancies between the Arabic Swadesh list found at Appendix:Afro-Asiatic Swadesh lists and the specific one. What would you make of them? --Barytonesis (talk) 13:30, 6 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I don’t know. Seems like the typical problem one gets involved in if one endeavors to work with such lists. I can’t tell which is better. If one puts in a vague question, multiplex answers come forth. This way for one English word it can be hard to choose the counterpart in an other language. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 14:35, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

False friends week
We keep those lists at WT:Foreign Word of the Day/Focus weeks. But I'm not sure all of them really fit. For false friends, I try only to feature those that are really similar enough to surprise you ( is a great example), rather than those that don't even have an immediately obvious link to English. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 10:45, 8 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Ah okay, but technically I am not determined that the words should be in such a week at all. They are good by themselves, and as is evident now, I cannot rely on my notion of their property of being false friends enough. Those words are proposed separately as FWOTD and additionally collected for false friends.
 * I am now after seeing that page of the opinion that I should not evaluate these words at all by categorizing them into a focus; I can only see what content is quality, and you can still consider the words I propose without focus for a focus. Thus it is consequent for me to rename that section I have made as “proposals also valid for false friends weeks”. Because, you know, the general page could be organized a bit. Or shall I put the words just back into the general stream? Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 13:58, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't mind too much either way, but I thought you'd want to be made aware of a page entirely dedicated to nominations organised by theme. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 14:33, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
 * That’s good, I would also have done that. Just it is a bit disheartening. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 14:35, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Ancient Greek from Semitic
Howdy, I was just noticing your recent additions of Semitic origins of AG words based on Brown and Levin. I was curious about them, so I looked through the books, and they seem to really on very poor scholarship and accidental resemblances. There certainly are a handful of words known to be borrowed from Semitic into AG (about 26, I recal), but most of the rest are thought to either be from PIE or from pre-Greek. Also, both of these authors seem to hedge their bets a lot, not saying that the terms are related but "look similar" or "share a medial dental". This isn't the type of rigorous, reliable comparative evidence that we trust. This shoddy scholarship makes me mistrust the books generally. —*i̯óh₁nC[5] 00:39, 25 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I don’t believe them either, especially the one for – though in both cases there are phonetic mismatches that need explanation, it is a hilarious application of reason to try to argue for this word being borrowed. I just added for the sake of completeness – and I was somehow challenged by that “everything derives from Greek” guy met on Talk:coral. However the endeavors of John Pairman Brown and Saul Levin are not that bad, it still thoroughly looks scholarly though it is daring and I can sometimes instantly laugh when I look into Saul Levin’s Semitic and Indo-European. Somebody had to do these comparisons, isn’t it, and for this Saul Levin’s work is remarkable. I mean, trying to find sound laws, checking borrowing, correct transcriptions, thorough checking of the semantic ranges – qualities well above that Nostratic level with those mindless lists that we know of and shared with serious linguistics, and Saul Levin and John Pairman Brown do not have preformed conclusions, they are just playing the advocatus diaboli, the minutiae are the qualities – in what concerns semantics, my impression is that they even put in more assiduousness than is usual in comparative linguistics, nice to read. Work that can be noted. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 01:06, 25 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your response and sorry for the delay. I'm convinced that you know what you are doing. —*i̯óh₁nC[5] 23:58, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

English irregular verbs
How can I get a list of verbs which are regular in standard modern English, but used to be strong verbs (i.e. have a past simple and/or past participle tagged as "archaic" or "obsolete". An example: yield)? 2a02:2788:a4:f44:3192:8897:b5cb:a7b1 14:32, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I don’t know any list with which you can be holpen, but maybe you want to collect them in a section in Appendix:English irregular verbs. It would be useful for older literature at least. Maybe has better collections? Add   next time you ask anything. Palaestrator verborum sis loquier 🗣 14:43, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
 * That's my boy! is a very nice example. Actually, German irregular verbs would be a good starting point. German is more archaic, it will have retained many strong verbs that have been regularised in English.
 * Yes, I should like to add them to Appendix:English irregular verbs. It's not a pretty table though, it's not engaging and nobody will want to study irregular verbs from there... 2a02:2788:a4:f44:3192:8897:b5cb:a7b1 15:16, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
 * LMAO, you are supposed to add them without the tags around them. Appendix:English irregular verbs is a fit place for the amount of people who actually want to see such a list. Palaestrator verborum sis loquier 🗣 15:20, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Perhaps Category:English strong verbs can help? I don't know if there is a page specifically for regularized strong verbs. Irregular verbs in general can be found at Category:English irregular verbs. Anglish4699 (talk) 20:11, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I thought you collect archaisms that have survived or something like that, and thus perhaps are able to name resources for it outwith Wiktionary. Palaestrator verborum sis loquier 🗣 20:24, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, I looked through all of my sources, and I couldn't find a collection of archaic strong verbs. Anglish4699 (talk) 20:43, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Or anything of use. :l Anglish4699 (talk) 20:45, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
 * You cannot be chidden. Rather the IP for being an IP merely – I cannot even hote it to eke the strong verb list by itself! Palaestrator verborum sis loquier 🗣 20:51, 29 December 2017 (UTC)