User talk:Stephen G. Brown/2006

Islamic months
Hi, and thanks for creating the entries for the Islamic months. Please note that Kappa has created a Category:Islamic months for the English names of the months, which is a subcategory of both Months and Islam. --EncycloPetey 12:58, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I didn’t see that. —Stephen 13:01, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Based on the work you've done (so far), I've also created an Appendix:Months of the Islamic Year to parallel the Appendix:Months of the Year for the Western calendar. However, I have organized the Islamic page vertically to avoid the whole right-to-left problem. --EncycloPetey 13:31, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Units of Time
Hello again, and thanks for filling in the Arabic months of the year (both Islamic and Westernixed)! It's so nice to see this information finally showing up on Wiktionary. Second, could you help fill in the Arabic information on Appendix:Units of time? If you can check the Russian as well, that would be great (I seem to recall that you have skill in russian as well)! --EncycloPetey 10:04, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you!
Thank you for fixing my mistakes in articles about Russian words :-). --Jaroslavleff 15:43, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


 * You’re welcome. And thank you for all the great examples. —Stephen 15:47, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Vitriolic question
Spanish aceche is from the Arabic, but I can't work out exactly what it was. The reason I'm confused is that my Arabic dictionary gives it as – it doesn't normally list things with the articles and I don't know if that means it always takes an article or what. Also the shadda on the zay is confusing me a bit. Widsith 16:04, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


 * The shadda on the zain indicates that the preceding lam is pronounced ‘z’: "az-zāj". There are a few words that always or almost always take the definite article, but this is not one of them. The Spanish word is from (az-zāj), with the article, but the citation form in an Arabic dictionary should be simply  (zāj, vitriol). —Stephen 16:21, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Well that's what I thought...oh well, dodgy dictionary I guess. Cheers. Widsith 16:22, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Notes from the Grease pit
I've been thinking about this for a very long time but now we're getting closer to being able to do it. If we choose the least ambiguous system as our default, we can make JavaScript that can convert it on page load to a system chosen per-user. Now it may or may not be possible to a) identify via javascript which system is in use and b) convert from any system to whichever system we decide to be the default.

Another solution would be to allow people to use whichever system they prefer as long as they label it. We could have multiple ones on a page even. Then a user preference would allow to a) display only the user's preferred system or b) generate the user's preferred system from whatever system is on the page - we could even put it in another colour to inform the user that it was translated.

Maybe that gives you guys some ideas. Have a think of what you think would be the best solution and then post to the Grease pit to let us hackers mull it over as to how easy it would be to implement. &mdash; Hippietrail 21:15, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your remarks
Thank you for your remarks about the hebrew translation. You are quite right about the pronunciation and the gender, but are you sure about the links to the Hebrew Wiktionary? I'm not sure it's a good idea to fill the English Wiktionary with Hebrew words. For English speakers - the pronunciation and gender should be enough, they already have the definition in English. The link is for the Hebrew spekers. I noticed that most languages don't have any links at all. What do you think?

Thanks,

Uri T


 * Yes, that’s how we are doing it here, not only with Hebrew but with Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, and all the languages that we can get. Most languages still have red links, and red links are our way of requesting an article. If a word is linked to another Wiktionary, the link will be blue and nobody will every write the article for us.
 * Frequently a reader does not have the definition or the pronunciation of a foreign word and he wants to know what it means and how to say it. Serious students want to have the gender and other grammatical information. As far as I can determine, native speakers of Hebrew look in the Hebrew Wiktionary to find Hebrew, just as Russians look in the Russian Wiktionary. Very few people who use English Wiktionary know anything other than a smattering of French, Spanish or German. However, we do have a method for linking to other Wiktionaries that native speakers may use ... after the pronunciation, you can insert ^ . This produces a link for English-speakers followed by ^ for Hebrew-speakers: ארה״ב (arh"b) ^. This is how we do all of the languages here. —Stephen 15:40, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Government
Please take a look for the goverment section of Russian verb возлюбить.

How do you think, is there a need for this? If answer is yes, then I can write such sections for Russian verbs.

Also, please check my mistakes, if any.

ps. And your talk page needs to be archived - it's so huge! ;)

--Jaroslavleff 20:49, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think it’s a good idea. This is a problem with lots of verbs, and I think this makes the usage clear. For perfective verbs, add "-pf" to the template name: . And yes, I’ve been ignoring my talk page for too long. —Stephen 21:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for indication of right template ;). I made government table, please look at восславлять. Are there any mistakes? And, may be, table itself needs some correction? --Jaroslavleff 07:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Excellent! — Vildricianus 12:36, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I made a minor correction, but otherwise I think it looks very good and is easy to understand. —Stephen 21:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I'll continue to do such tables :) --Jaroslavleff 06:49, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Correct terms
Please, say what variant is more correct:
 * verbal form or verb form (отглагольная форма in Russian)?
 * verbal noun or verb noun (отглагольное существительное in Russian)?
 * adverbial participle or verbal adverb (деепричастие in Russian)?

I use first variants, but are they right? --Jaroslavleff 17:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It’s verb form, verbal noun, and verbal adverb (or gerund). But I think adverbial participle is also acceptable for деепричастие. —Stephen 18:46, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

pandeism transliteration
Thanks for adding the transliteration for pandeism in Russian (Russian: пандеизм (pandeízm) ) - I have made the corresponding change to the entries for pantheism and deism. Cheers! bd2412 T 13:50, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

tasukide vs tasukete
http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=help&diff=next&oldid=1199708, yes, I was a bit sleepy :-) ---jengelh 2006-07-01 14:44+0200 (CEST)

Index:Tamil
Do you have any knowledge of Tamil? If so, could you try to fix the links and that weird table on the index? — Vildricianus 16:13, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay. —Stephen 09:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Wanted pages cleanup
Hello Stephen,

Looking at Special:Wantedpages, I see the Index:Tamil pages topping the list. Do you have any ideas as to how to clear those out?

Should I enter all of them as stub links, or delink them? Or is this something you plan on addressing, and therefore something I should leave alone?

Thanks in advance,

--Connel MacKenzie 19:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the best thing to do is stub entries. I have done a few of them, for instance Index:Tamil/னா. You could help but I’ve been including transcriptions, and that would be asking too much of you, I think. I’ll keep plodding along. —Stephen 19:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * True; I have no idea how ot determine the transcriptions. I'll leave it to you for now.  THANK YOU.  --Connel MacKenzie 21:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, each one is a syllable consisting of a consonant plus a vowel, and I’ve included the consonants in the Roman alphabet in the top (horizontal) row, and the vowels down the first (vertical) column. Still, it’s a bit of a pain. But I’m making some headway. —Stephen 21:17, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Looks like you did an excellent job clearing them, though! I've pestered Vild for the Finnish ones.  :-)     --Connel MacKenzie 18:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

תירגמה
Hi Stephen and thanks for the comments on the Hebrew requests page. This is the correct form, taken from the front matter of ידיעה על חטיפה, the Hebrew translation of Gabriel García Márquez's Noticia de un secuestro. I was trying to find the name of the translator to add to my catalog but since Wiktionary doesn't have a Hebrew translation under translator I checked the Hebrew for translate and translation and noted that the triliteral root is probably רגם. The term used to title this section is the only one in the front matter that seems to be based on רגם. Perhaps you could provide the Hebrew for translator or let me know what else to look for in the frontmatter. I could even scan the page if you like. Thanks again. &mdash; Hippietrail 01:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * No, the root for this is quadriliteral, תרגם, both in Hebrew and in Arabic (etymon for dragoman). The Hebrew for translator is מתרגם or מתורגמן. —Stephen 01:51, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much. I notice since you point it out that dragoman could do with your expert touch at least in the etymology section. &mdash; Hippietrail 07:21, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Request for your expertise
I've recently noticed that a whole bunch of people can't see all of the Greek characters in the Greek words, specifically letters with breathing marks, accents, and/or iota subscripts. Somehow or another I've enabled my computer to read them properly, but I don't know exactly how I did it. Would you have the time and be willing to compose a short form of instructions for people on how to modify their computers to do so? It could be placed on the Greek index. And what would be really nice would be if a small, unobtrusive template, which would link to that set of instructions, could be constructed and put on the Greek articles. I have rather little computer expertise, and so would be ill-prepared for such an endeavor. However, I'd be more than happy to put the work into this, so if you don't feel like doing it yourself, if you could point me in the direction of some materials on this, that would also be much appreciated. Thanks. Cerealkiller13 06:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it’s somewhat more complicated than that. It depends on the fonts one has installed, it depends on the browser, and to some extent on the operating system. Most of the common fonts will not display the breathing marks or iota subscripts (such fonts include: Times New Roman, Courier New, Verdana, Lucide Sans Unicode, Trebuchet MS, Georgia, Garamond, Century, and Bookman). Only a small number of fonts have these glyphs available, including Tahoma, Arial Unicode MS, Code 2000, and TITUS Cyberbit.
 * Among browsers, I believe that Firefox is usually better about selected the appropriate font if one is available, but I know that with some alphabets Internet Explorer does a better job (e.g., Indian alphabets).
 * Depending on the browser type and version, there is usually a place where you can specify fonts for different alphabets. I use Firefox, and in Firefox this is located at: TOOL > OPTIONS > CONTENT > FONTS > ADVANCED. Under "Advanced", you can select the Greek alphabet and see what your browser is set to, for Serif, Sans Serif, and Monospaced. You can change these to whatever fonts you actually have on your machine, probably Tahoma, Arial Unicode MS, Code 2000, or TITUS Cyberbit. Other browsers will have a similar font-selection feature, but under a different name or somewhere else in the menu.
 * Another possibility is to use a template, the way I do for Arabic, Thai and some other languages. I will make a special Greek template for you to use, which will be —Stephen 11:39, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

แกงเขียวหวาน, แกงเผ็ด
Hi Stephen. I've tried to wikify the parts of these words but due to difficult spelling and order of vowel characters and unfamiliarity with the Thai alphabet my efforts are incomplete and possibly wrong. I wonder if you'd care to take a look. I think this is best practice since we do it for compounds in languages which uses spaces and also for Japanese and Chinese. &mdash; Hippietrail 01:56, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You got แกงเผ็ด (curry spicy) right, and I finished wikifying แกงเขียวหวาน (curry green sweet). —Stephen 03:05, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Разблюто again
I think that разблюто is indeclinable.

E.g., "У меня нет разблюто", "Я всё посвятил своему разблюто", "Этим я обязан моему разблюто" sounds more preferable in Russian than "У меня нет разблюта", "Я всё посвятил своему разблюту", "Этим я обязан моему разблюту".

More than, my sense of Russian language says me that разблюто must have an accent on the last syllable, i.e. разблютО, not разблЮто. --Jaroslavleff 11:57, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Now that's been a stroke of genius! Just outstanding! My congratulations, Jaroslavleff. Dart evader 12:22, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree, Jaroslavleff. I will remove the declension table and put a comment that it is indeclinable. —Stephen 20:09, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:ja-kanji
Very good; I've been meaning to get around to this. Robert Ullmann 21:35, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Unrecognized characters
You doing great job with transliteration from cyrillic spelling. However, some characters invisible. See: ваклык vakl#k, вөҗданлы (vö#danl#). I used symbol "#" to mark invisible characters. I think main problem with transliterated cyrillic ы. Can you fix it. Thanks. Eric Utgerd 03:35, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * That means that the font you are using does not contain that character. I will try a font template to see if it helps. I see all the letters clearly on my system. —Stephen 04:11, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok. Now I see all the letters clearly. Thanks. Eric Utgerd 04:20, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Transliterating Ukrainian
Is there a perfered system to use in Wikitionary? I noticed some Russian entries use more than one. When I changed it to the Library of Congress borshch you changed it to something else with diatcritical marks. I know on Wikipedia is is against policy (no diacritical marks), is Wikitionary different? Thanks for the help. Kevlar67 03:19, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, there are several common systems for transliterating Russian or Ukrainian, but we are trying to use just one for Wiktionary entries. We’ve been using a system that reasonably consistent with Serbian romanization for all of the Slavic languages that use Cyrillic, including č, ž, š, and šč. The diacritics that you refer to are, I assume, the acute accent. This is not needed for languages that have a predictable stress, such as Polish, Czech and Serbian, but languages such as Russian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian have unpredictible stress and it is very helpful to mark the accented syllable. I have been using áéíóúý for this, but some websites prefer underlining or making the stressed syllable red in color. —Stephen 04:18, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually I was referring to the use of č vs ch and š vs sh, etc. I don't particularily like these because they are harder for new editors to type, they don't tell people without a scholarly background how to pronouce the word, and they don't show how likey English derivations would be spelled (e.g. borshch and Kyiv, which are both used in English), and because it's not the system used by the US or Ukrainian governments.  Is this a official policy or just established practise?  Is there a relevant Wikiproject or group who have adressed the matter?  Anyway, for now I won't try to change the articles in question.  The stress mark I have no problem with, as long as the average reader can be expected to know what it is.  Kevlar67 00:49, 21 September 2006 (UTC)


 * (1) They are harder for some people to type, but they are included in the Latin/Roman and Slavic-Roman character-insertion alphabets below the editing screen, and most people who are capable of translating or transliterating languages such as Ukrainian are also knowledgeable about these letters and how to enter them. (2) It does not matter that the very few English derivations don’t match this spelling, since the transliterations are not needed for the purpose of definition or etymology (and although Kyiv may be found in some texts, I don’t know any American who would recognize Kyiv as being the same city as Kiev; and the usual English spelling of borscht is with a 't', at least in American English). The transliterations here are only intended as an approximate pronunciation guide for the casual user. (3) It is official policy that a single transliteration scheme be used here, but the particular system to be used has not yet been prescribed. As I explained before, we want to use a system that is essentially the same for all of the Slavic languages written in Cyrillic, and this is the only acceptable way to transliterate Serbo-Croatian. If we use a different system, that would mean using two disparate transliteration schemes for the Slavic languages and nobody wants that. (4) I have put the matter in the Beer Parlor for a vote previously, but there is a sharp division over the use of Y versus J (yest’ or jest’). The one thing that almost everyone is in agreement with is the use of č and š. —Stephen 03:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Unicode
Please, remove Russian "Уникод" translation. The only correct spelling is "Юникод", see http://www.unicode.org/standard/UnicodeTranscriptions.html. Sergei 08:02, 7 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Both words exist. See, for example, Юникод. —Stephen 08:24, 7 October 2006 (UTC)


 * "Уникод" is illiterate. At least it must be marked as deprecated. Sergei 09:04, 7 October 2006 (UTC)


 * In the Translation section of Unicode, we only put a minimal of information: the Russian word, a transliteration, and the gender. Most complex or in-depth information must be placed on the relevant Юникод and Уникод pages. Below is the story about Юникод/Уникод. A simple remark (reduced to a single sentence, phrase or perhaps even word) goes in English on both Юникод and  Уникод after they are created:


 * «Unicode» — одновременно и имя собственное (или часть имени, например Unicode Consortium), и имя нарицательное, происходящее из английского языка.


 * На первый взгляд предпочтительнее использовать написание «Уникод». В русском языке уже есть морфемы «уни-» (слова с латинским элементом «uni-» традиционно переводились и писались через «уни-»: универсальный, униполярный, унификация, униформа) и «код». Напротив, торговые марки, заимствованные из английского языка, обычно передаются посредством практической транскрипции, в которой деэтимологизированное сочетание букв «uni-» записывается в виде «юни-» («Юнилевер», «Юникс» и т. п.), то есть точно так же, как в случае с побуквенными сокращениями, вроде UNICEF «United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund» — ЮНИСЕФ.


 * В качестве перевода имени нарицательного, слово «уникод» можно было бы рассматривать как сложносокращённое — например, от выражения «универсальная кодировка». Однако это привело бы появлению двух слов с похожим звучанием и колебанию значений. Поэтому при локализации операционной системы Windows 95 компания «Майкрософт» ввела написание русского слова «Юникод» по форме имени собственного.


 * Написание «Юникод» уже твёрдо вошло в русскоязычные тексты. Согласно «Яндексу», частота использования этого слова в 3,5 раза превышает «Уникод». В Википедии используется более распространённый вариант.


 * На сайте консорциума есть специальная страница, где рассматриваются проблемы передачи слова «Unicode» в различных языках и системах письма. Для русской кириллицы указан вариант «Юникод». —Stephen 12:14, 7 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The story only says that in some other words Uni is transliterated Уни.
 * Mentioning there a correct and incorrect spellings looks like both are the correct Russian translations which is not true. Being a native speaker, I can say that "Уникод" is regarded as a perverted word and used rarely just for fun in informal discussions. It's place is somewhere in "Alternative spellings" in Юникод and it should redirect to "Юникод" when created. Sergei 12:52, 7 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Sergei, you're wrong. Уникод and Юникод both are in use. Юникод is so popular variant because of its using in Russian versions of Microsoft Windows. --Jaroslavleff 06:37, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

African languages
Hi, do you have a list you are working from? I'm adding languages and code templates to the rw.wikt. Would be useful Robert Ullmann 17:09, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * No, I usually find them by googling for "Ethnologue 639-3 LANGUAGENAME". In some cases, I have to dig deeper, especially in regard to alternate names and dialects. —Stephen 17:13, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * So you don't have a specific list of African languages you were working from? Okay. Btw: when/if you come across "websters -- the Rosetta edition can you replace it with, I've been trying to de-spam this; it is useful, but the links were spammed into a lot of entries a couple of years ago. Robert Ullmann 17:25, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Одушевленный
"animate (form of an adjective for living beings)"

Sorry, but I cannot understand this definition. What is that form? Dart evader 09:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It means living beings, as in people, animals, insects, birds, etc. It’s the distinction between "я вижу интересный стол" (стол is inanimate) and "я вижу интересного пса" (пёс is animate). That’s why the adjective takes two different forms in the accusative. —Stephen 09:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, I know that, of course. But isn't the first defininition (i.e. одушевленный — animate) enough? As far as I know, no one regards (or calls) this as a special form. Everyone just knows that the accusative case is different for animate and inanimate objects, that's all. I believe that such a definition as above is somewhat confusing. Dart evader 09:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, of course, Russians know it. American and British students of Russian have a tendency to forget, and they often write "я вижу интересный пёс", and "я не вижу интересный пёс". —Stephen 09:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, let it be. Dart evader 09:48, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Another cavil of mine :-). Strictly speaking, одушевлена́, одушевлено́, одушевлены́ are not short forms of adjective одушевленный. They all are forms of одушевлённый, which is the past passive participle of verb одушевлять. E.g., "Галатея была одушевлена Афродитой". Dart evader 10:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, I see what you mean. The forms одушевлена́, одушевлено́, одушевлены́ belong in the conjugation table for одушевленный, but I wasn’t sure if they should also be mentioned in the adjective. I had better remove them from the adjective tables. —Stephen 10:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * BTW, there is no одушевленный in Russian, it's only одушевлённый. See on slovari.gramota.ru. --Jaroslavleff 05:32, 20 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah, Jaroslavleff, but of course I meant одушевлённый. It's just that we Russians have got used to write e instead of ё. I imagine the amount of confusion that peculiar habit creates among foreign learners of Russian, ha-ha. Dart evader 13:04, 20 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Exactly. And that’s why I made a redirect at одушевленный. —Stephen 07:05, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

подонки & падонки
Your definition of падонки is very apt. But why plurale tantum? It is quite possible to use подонки, as well as падонки, in the singular. Подонок is mostly used as an invective ("Aх ты, подонок!" or "Этот подонок"), with the meaning somewhat close to a "bastard" or "scoundrel". However, the singular of падонки is more interesting. Падонки themselves would refer to one of their own as падонак, to make it even more funny, instead of the more literate падонок. --Dart evader 20:21, 23 October 2006 (UTC)


 * That thought occurred to me after I wrote the article. Clearly a singular is an appropriate form. I will add it. The problem is, the word seems to be used mostly in the plural, so I’m not sure if the basic article should be the plural or the singular. I’ll leave it plural for now. —Stephen 20:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

люд
Usage of люд is not restricted to рабочий люд only. See. And I wouldn't say that in modern Russian it can be considered to be the singular of люди. Perhaps, the etymological singular of люди would be some archaic людъ or люде, although I'm not sure. Dart evader 21:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I don’t remember seeing it used in those phrases. It indicates that it is a different word from люди, not just a singular of it. I will adjust the connection. —Stephen 21:44, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

et tu, Brute, etc
Yes, a moot point on the Latin def -- I was in two minds myself, but had added "you too, Brutus" since it appeared that the first recorded Latin use, at least by hearsay, was in Richard Eedes play about Julius Caesar, and that was the meaning. However, there were probably millions of unrecorded uses where Latin speakers had used it without that slightly different meaning, and the changed word order might confuse non-latin speakers, so perhaps best as you left it.

One other point. The Brutus entry uses a declension template which doesn't mention the vocative -- unfortunate in view of the principal modern use in English. I don't know my way round the Latin templates. Do you know how to alter it? --Eng in ear 18:18, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, the "and you" and the "you too" translations both mean the same thing, so only one of them is needed. Although "you too" is more in line with modern colloquial style, the "and you" translation seems to be the one that everyone uses for this.
 * The problem with the vocative case is that it takes various forms in the 2nd declension (the declension for Brutus) according to terminus. If I add vocative "-e" for Brute, then it will be incorrect for many other 2nd-declension nouns. For example, the vocative for nouns in "-us" (Brutus, hortus) is "-e" (Brute, horte); for nouns in "-um" such as bellum, the vocative is "-um" (bellum); for nouns in "-er" and "-ir", the vocative is zero grade (puer, puer; vir, vir). There is an additional exception for certain nouns borrowed from Greek.
 * The only way I can think of to include the vocative in the 2nd-declension template would be to have different 2nd-declension templates for the various terminus types. —Stephen 00:13, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I have added the vocative case to Template:la-decl-2nd (Brutus, hortus), Template:la-decl-2nd-ER (puer, vir), and Template:la-decl-2nd-N (bellum). —Stephen 00:56, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Brilliant.


 * Yes, I remember a lot of rote learning of 2nd declension nouns before patterns started to emerge. --Eng in ear 01:12, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for input
Thank you for a long awaited reaction to my proposals on the Appendix talk:Afro-Asiatic Swadesh lists page. Five months passed and no one noticed - which makes me wonder what would have happened if the page had been vandalized. Would anyone notice had I transcribed Arabic in Swedish, written in Gujarati? More seriously, what do you think about the rest of the proposals, concerniing the vowels and consonants? Ratzd&#39;mishukribo 00:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Plurals in translations
Hi Stephen,

As I asked on Talk:leaf, why are you putting those plurals back? I do not think they belong there, they belong on the pages for лист, jani, aniibiishibag etc. henne 16:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, they should be moved to the respective pages for each word in most cases, and you are welcome to do that. However, if the page does not yet exist, then please do not delete this important information. For example, after you removed the information and I put it back, I subsequently created the Russian page for лист. Nevertheless, лист has two different declensions depending on meaning, and the correct declension is only apparent from the plural...so the Russian in this unusual case needs to keep the plural on the leaf page for purposes of disambiguation. I am also the usual contributor for Ojibwe, and Ojibwe has two main kinds of plural (-g and -n) according to noun class, which is comparable to gender in Indo-European languages...so the Ojibwe plural is very important, and I want to keep it on leaf until I or someone else eventually creates the respective Ojibwe page. —Stephen 22:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I can live with that. OTOH, it does make that page a bit cluttered.  How about moving the information to the talk pages, or commenting it out?  henne 18:01, 25 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The talk pages don’t exist yet because the main pages don’t exist. It would be as easy to create the main page directly rather than a temporary talk page. In this particular case, however, the Russian plurals are needed on leaf for disambiguation, and of course the Swahili noun classes are always needed. So, there aren’t but two or three words that actually could be moved (Ojibwe and Swahili plurals). Ojibwe is in the very early stages of introduction here, and there are still kinks. One is what to do about noun class (animate or inanimate), which determines the kind of plural treatment a word gets and also affects the verb. Animate nouns have their plural in -g, while inanimate nouns get -n. When we finally move the Ojibwe plural off of the page, I suppose we will need to replace it with [animate] or devise an abbreviation for it (a., i.?). But since animacy is not a feature of most Indo-European languages, abbreviations may be confusing. We may have to spell it out, which means the clutter won’t be reduced very much. —Stephen 18:27, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Russian for listen
Hello, Would you mind adding the Russian translation(s) for the various senses of listen? Thanks, --EncycloPetey 02:59, 4 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay. —Stephen 02:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'm hoping to make listen a model entry worthy of listing on the WT:ELE, so if you think of anything else that would help the entry serve as such, I'd appreciate it. I'll be adding more quotes, defs and such when I get the time to do so later today. --EncycloPetey 19:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Please have a look
Please take a look at this set of contributions and help straighten out what looks to me like a rather misguided attempt to adjust the way the Hebrew is written. Thanks. --Dvortygirl 20:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * All fixed. —Stephen 15:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

С Рождеством Христовым
Thank you for putting the right signs in pronounce for the Russian Merry Christmas. 14:12, 31 December 2006 (UTC)Mallerd


 * It was my pleasure. —Stephen 14:16, 31 December 2006 (UTC)