User talk:Ssvb

апалонік
Sorry for not adding the ł in the łacinka form, I was in a hurry when I made that (because someone was calling me), thus, I didn't pay enough attention to it, my bad. Rodrigo5260 (talk) 17:51, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Taraškievica spellings
Should we add pronunciation to these entries? Наименее Полезное (talk) 23:36, 13 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @Наименее Полезное: My personal opinion is that such entries should preferably have just the bare minimum of necessary information and avoid duplications with the main entry if possible. There's WT:FORMS policy related to handling these entries. But if you have a better suggestion, then please let me know.
 * Regarding specifically pronunciations. If pronunciation of the official spelling does not really differ from Taraškievica for some word, then there's no need for having a duplicated pronunciation information in the Taraškievica entry. I'm talking about the words like госць/госьць (both have ). BTW, here's an interesting pronunciation example video of "госці" vs. дзесьці vs. штосьці: https://youtu.be/QANZfzHsRl0&t=92
 * But if pronunciation actually differs, then having its own pronunciation section in the Taraškievica entry is perfectly justified. For example, for міф/міт, сімвал/сымбаль and many other cases like this. Ssvb (talk) 10:07, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

światło obsolete?
I don't think there's necessarily an obsolete and non-obsolete spelling with Łacinka, since it's not really standardized. There's a "most recent" usage, but not really one which people are required to stick to. People could use a Polish-inspired spelling if they wanted to. Plus, if we follow that government transliteration thing, then святло would be. No initial S with acute, since it's not transliterating Taraškievica. Not to mention that Taraškievič (1929) actually preferred W over V. Also I believe some variants of Łacinka use "ji" for word-initial Cyrillic "i". Insaneguy1083 (talk) 22:00, 14 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @Insaneguy1083: The światło spelling is obsolete, because people stopped using the letter "w" and replaced it with "v" in books and other printed publications after 1939, slightly amending the older standard accepted in 1918. It's necessary to categorize spelling variants somehow, so I labelled światło as obsolete. Leaving śviatło as the current most up to date attestable spelling variant.
 * The government transliteration thing is irrelevant, because it had a rather narrow scope and had been always limited only to transliterating geographic names (without trying to use it for anything else). More importantly, it doesn't even exist anymore, since it was abolished in 2023 and the road signs with it had been already exterminated in some sort of a strangely urgent frenzy. The government surprisingly found it necessary to allocate money to pay for this activity. Anyway, before 2023 people could point their fingers at the street signs and claim that it was the very visible de-facto "Łacinka", ignoring the old books hidden out of sight in library vaults. But now this argument ceased to exist. Today only Google Translate still uses the phased out geographic transliteration for its romanization of Belarusian. The texts with the letter "ĺ" posted on the Internet tend to be produced by Google Translate, making their credibility even more questionable as far as Wiktionary is concerned. --Ssvb (talk) 06:30, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * But even still I wouldn't call it obsolete. I'm sure there's someone out there using W over V somehow. I know this is starting to get a bit pedantic, but maybe it could be classed as dated or even archaic rather than obsolete? Perhaps you could consult communities or organizations that continue to use Łacinka. That said, it's just my personal suggestion as a non-native Belarusian learner.
 * But also this doesn't necessarily answer the question of initial Ś. Do all contemporary Łacinka varieties follow Taraškievica in that regard? Or do any of them just use S, like one would in non-Taraškievica Belarusian Cyrillic? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 06:52, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Insaneguy1083: Distinct labels are still necessary to differentiate between śviatło, światło and possibly the other forms if they ever gain traction. The exact names of these labels can be probably discussed and agreed upon in WT:BP. --Ssvb (talk) 10:39, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Insaneguy1083: Regarding the initial Ś in "śviatło". It just happens that nobody is interested in the spelling variant with the initial S. The government officials are fighting against the Latin alphabet in any shape or form. The others dislike having the spelling variant with the initial S, because it's simply phonetically inaccurate. Littering Wiktionary with some extra artificially created entries is also not ideal. --Ssvb (talk) 10:57, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Insaneguy1083: Regarding the "ji" spelling, it's not directly related to Łacinka. It's just a case of non-standard pronunciation spelling. And the examples of it can be found in old Cyrillic texts as well. One can search for the words "їх", "йих" or something like "яна й" in the Belarusian Wikisource. The sound "j" appears as a break between the letter "i" and a preceding vowel. For example, have a look at the IPA and pronunciation of the Belarusian words краіна/Украіна, paying attention to the pronunciation of "i" after the vowel "a". And compare to the Ukrainian країна/Україна. Yes, the current official Belarusian alphabet doesn't have a dedicated letter "ї" unlike Ukrainian, but it's still implied after a vowel.
 * Here's another example, the Cyrillic "з іх" converts to Łacinka as "z ich" (Taraškievica 1918) or "ź ich" (Taraškievica 2005), but is actually pronounced as "ź jich":
 * --Ssvb (talk) 09:56, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * --Ssvb (talk) 09:56, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Theory of Belarusian word etymology
I posited this etymology for sometime back and didn't get any meaningful response. I did also include an explanation of relevant Yiddish morphology through which I came to that conclusion. Do you think it could be legit? And could I put that etymology (maybe with a "possibly" before it) on the actual page for the word? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 05:01, 17 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @Insaneguy1083: I'm afraid that I have nothing useful to say and I'm not into etymology in general. I only know that https://verbum.by/ search also has the etymological and historical dictionaries indexed. But if there are no hits in these dictionaries, then I have no clues whatsoever.
 * Also I can't find "ахосал" or any of its possible declension variants in Wikisource or in Google Books via Quiet Quentin search configured for Belarusian. Except for that particular single quote from the example. So it may even have possible WT:CFI attestation problems.
 * If it's a part of direct speech, then various weird non-standard words can be found in books, including but not limited to Trasianka. For example, I can find "Ідзі, браток, лепш гешэфт мах" quote in Wikisource. This "мах" is unlikely to be a real Belarusian word, but more like an imitation of German machen or possibly Yiddish. --Ssvb (talk) 20:59, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Re attestation, I found that initial usage on Slounik, and then subsequently found this forum thread which also discussed some alternate forms of the word (like I mentioned in the scriptorium, the ending probably comes from  /ɫ̩/, and so is prone to being spelt any number of ways) and its connotations. Nonetheless, extremely dialectal for sure and probably obsolete by now given the near-death of Yiddish in Belarus, but judging by the discussions on the forum, had definitely been used in Belarusian speech at some point in time. So personally I'd at least keep the entry online.
 * Re : I'm pretty sure it is in fact just /, specifically in the imperative, so like  in Belarusian. Literally translates to "make a better gesheft". Insaneguy1083 (talk) 21:48, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

-я / -ё official form?
If there is a neuter Belarusian word to be added which features both forms that end in -я and -ё, which one should be made the "official" form and which one the alternative form? Looking at past form, it should probably be -я, but if I try to search for on Skarnik, it redirects me to. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 15:30, 31 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @Insaneguy1083: I don't think that it makes a big difference and you can pick either of them. Follow the Skarnik's preferred choice and nobody is going to complain. Also a simple search in Belarusian Wikisource: шчанё - 34 hits, шчаня - 9 hits (but that's mostly the stats from the books published roughly a century ago). --Ssvb (talk) 19:37, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I think that this is governed by the WT:FORMS policy, which currently says: "In particular, while some editors try to make the “main” entry correspond to the most common form —and some sysops actively encourage this— the official policy is that all the forms are equally valid. Thus, designation of a term as an alternative form of another does not mean it is in any way less valid (although care should be taken to see if the form is regional or obsolete, in which case it should be flagged as such)." --Ssvb (talk) 19:49, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Belarusian word for "cream"
already exists as an entry, I made, but does exist as a Belarusian word for "cream"? I looked it up and several sources returned "сливки (деревца)". What does little trees have to do with cream? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 09:25, 11 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @Insaneguy1083: The word is a diminutive form of  and  is its plural diminutive form. That's where the "little tree" sense comes from. But I can also find "выпіў сліўкі" usage example in Belarusian Wikisource, which hints that it means "cream" there. Moreover, it's a translation of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", so we can probably look up the original English sentence for it. --Ssvb (talk) 09:51, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

be-IPA bugs with "г"
Looking at the auto-generated IPA in бязглузды, it seems that whoever came up with the be-IPA template forgot to fix the pronunciation for "г", which is especially ironic since even the audio sample on pronounces it /ɣ/ as opposed to /g/. Not sure if you're the right person to ask about this, but if you could look into the bug on the template then that would be greatly appreciated. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 23:16, 15 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @Insaneguy1083: Indeed, looks like Template:be-IPA just finds the "зг" letters sequence and automatically transcribes it as /g/ without considering that, morphologically, in this case it's a prefix "без-/бяз-" attached to another word. I could just go and fix this. Or should I first request somebody's permission somewhere?
 * That said, I'm rather unhappy about the state of the Belarusian IPA support in general for various reasons and its Lua module even fails its own testcases right now. --Ssvb (talk) 01:47, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Hmm? Does this mean that "зг" is usually /zg/ in Belarusian in other cases? Either way, I don't think you really have to get anyone's permission to fix it. One has the feeling most of the Belarusian modules and templates were just directly copied from the Ukrainian ones. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 11:05, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Discord
You may or may not want to consider joining WT:Discord where I and many other Slavic editors discuss things. It would be useful to have a resident Belarusian! Vininn126 (talk) 09:48, 9 June 2024 (UTC)


 * @Vininn126: Thanks for the invitation, but I'm locked out of Discord. Some years ago it started to demand my phone number to login, but I'm refusing to give away this private information as a matter of principle. Is IRC a usable alternative? --Ssvb (talk) 03:19, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't think we have an IRC, so the website's means of discussion should be fine :P Vininn126 (talk) 07:15, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Belarusian "to have"
Perhaps not necessarily related to Wiktionary as such, but what's the most common way in Belarusian to express the verb "to have"? Because despite the usage note on, I've seen a lot of on Belarusian Wikipedia articles, rather than  or. And those wiki articles aren't necessarily Taraškievica either. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 10:38, 13 June 2024 (UTC)


 * @Insaneguy1083: There is a big detailed article on this topic here and the diagram listed in it claims that the split is around 45% vs. 55%. So these two ways are roughly equally common according to it.
 * Searching on Belarusian Wikisource, which admittedly largely represents older Belarusian texts: "ён мае" - 174 hits, "яна мае" - 81 hits, "у яго ёсць" + "ў яго ёсць" - 62 hits, "у яе ёсць" + "ў яе ёсць" - 15 hits.
 * Searching on Google Books: "ён мае" - 5410 hits, "яна мае" - 3420 hits, "у яго ёсць" + "ў яго ёсць" - 2540 hits, "у яе ёсць" + "ў яе ёсць" - 817 hits. --Ssvb (talk) 08:18, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * So I guess the usage note on may be due a little rewriting, huh. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 09:00, 14 June 2024 (UTC)