User talk:Wyang/Archive7

登基
Hello. I noticed you added tag historical to its discription, but I think I found some of this word's usages describing comtempory monarchies: 1 2. Dokurrat (talk) 09:08, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Ah thanks. I've removed it. Wyang (talk) 09:11, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
 * ^_^ Dokurrat (talk) 09:19, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Mixed script
Hi, thanks a lot for automating the population of Category:Japanese terms spelled with mixed kana! Some entries are incorrectly categorized though, like イース, ページ and ボール. Thanks! NMaia (talk) 22:55, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I've fixed the chouonpu problem. The category is being gradually depopulated now. Wyang (talk) 07:37, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Help with Wu in the zh-pron template
Hey could you fix this edit please, thanks.--Prisencolin (talk) 22:35, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
 * , it should be fixed. Wu Minidict's tone numbers are different from our system, which is explained here. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 23:36, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Hey, don't leave module errors behind with your edits. Users may not be online to fix errors immediately. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 23:44, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Came across this interesting little Wu anecdote while reading about the seemingly-unrelated WWII Doolittle Raid. Any idea how to enter lushu hoo megwa fugi as an entry?--Prisencolin (talk) 04:44, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
 * , it should be blatantly obvious that this should not be a Chinese entry, and there are so many other things wrong with this entry. You can't rely on other people to fix your errors, even if there aren't module errors. Wiktionary works with WT:CFI, so if it meets WT:ATTEST, it could probably be an English entry. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 04:57, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Chuhsien = 衢縣? Wyang (talk) 10:39, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

A petit(?) typological concern
In entry 蝴蝶 I see …

I see two types of apostrophes used. Is there any difference? Dokurrat (talk) 02:07, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Ah no, I've corrected the apostrophes in the entry, thanks. Wyang (talk) 10:45, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Japanese indices
Thanks for adding kana to my indices. Could you complete Index:Japanese On/* too? --Octahedron80 (talk) 13:59, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Yeah, certainly. Added kana to them too. Wyang (talk) 21:58, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

䳀 (not urgent)
Hi Wyang, I just thought I'd ask you about 䳀 from Extension A. The Unihan database gives "cuckoo; a kind of pigeon; a kind of water bird" as the definitions for this character. After looking through old dictionary text about the character (via zdic.net), I was curious about what the text said as it seemed somewhat peculiar (from what little I could reasonably make of it). One example being "鋪豉也. 鋪豉，鳥名. ", of which 鋪豉 refers to "a store that sells salted fermented beans" then mentions "name of a bird"! Anyway, if you have any spare time, maybe you could look at it just to get some idea of what it's specifically referring to. Cheers! Bumm13 (talk) 22:11, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
 * 鋪豉 is just onomatopoeic. It could also be written as 餔𢻃 (爾雅) or 哺豉 (龍龕手鑑). Although the Kangxi Dictionary does say it could be referring to the cuckoo, Hanyu Da Cidian says otherwise. The Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants treats it as a variant of 鴩. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 22:40, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Bot error
Hi! has caused module errors in a few entries like by deleting a pipe separating a template parameter. I went and fixed the entries, but you might want to check your code. — Eru·tuon 00:12, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Checked. Category:Terms with redundant transliterations/sa has been cleaned up now. Wyang (talk) 00:51, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

溸
Hi Wyang, I'm having some difficulty parsing the second definition of 溸 -- "舟中取水的用具". Something about a boat, water intake and an appliance or gear. Cheers! Bumm13 (talk) 18:19, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi, it means "the appliance used to fetch (scoop up) water while in a boat". :) Wyang (talk) 01:22, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

莘莘
I've not seen xin1xin1 before. Where does this reading come from? Dokurrat (talk) 02:56, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
 * It's a pretty common variant; even the president used it. It is the new standard in Taiwan. Wyang (talk) 07:06, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

滰
I think I have most of the definition for 滰 figured out, but there might be some details that I'm not understanding. The text reads: "將泡過的米濾乾" It might be saying something about soaking the rice, too, but I'm not totally sure about the first three characters. Thanks for your help! Bumm13 (talk) 02:11, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi, 將 is the object marker (definition #10 of pronunciation 1), and 泡過的米 (rice that has been soaked) is the object. 濾乾 means "to dry by filtering". Thus the phrase means to filter off the water to get dried, rinsed rice. Wyang (talk) 02:22, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

全魚醬 phrase
Hi Wyang, would the phrase "全魚醬" refer to a (whole) fish marinated in soybean paste or just a specific-flavored soybean paste. It's not urgent but I was just wanting to make sure I wasn't inferring the wrong thing. It's for 䱓 in Ext. A. Cheers! ^_^ Bumm13 (talk) 20:09, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi! This isn't entirely unambiguous, but I think this is more likely to be a whole-fish paste (a paste made from a whole fish). A quote in 《滇畧》 seems to corroborate this. Wyang (talk) 23:08, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

搲 meaning
Hi again! I was wondering where you got the "to masturbate" meaning for 搲 (and related 攨). I can't find this meaning elsewhere online, but I admittedly don't know of any Mandarin slang dictionaries. Chagneling (talk) 06:19, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi, if you search for 搲 攨 女性 you can get plenty of hits. Hopefully it is citable amongst those... Wyang (talk) 08:20, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/115.27.197.215
Not sure if you've checked their latest edits (like 剛果（金）). —suzukaze (t・c) 23:13, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I think I've checked these... at least the ones that are not university abbreviations and non-Chinese. Wyang (talk) 05:52, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Template:zh-new-er
The template does not work. What's up? You may test the issue at 一丁點兒.--2001:DA8:201:1412:3:0:0:4F9 16:10, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
 * It was written to fit the old code of some years back. You can use  as a substitute. Wyang (talk) 22:34, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Etym at 時間
Hello Wyang, bringing this to you as the main ZH editor that I'm aware of. :)

Is accurate? I was under the impression that the term existed in Chinese well before the Japanese repurposing in the early Meiji period. The etym at 時間 might be useful as one reference point. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 18:13, 26 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi Eirikr, long time no see. Yes and no - existed in Classical Chinese, meaning “the present time; moment; at the moment; immediately”, but it is hard to know whether it is wasei kango/repurposed in Japan. It is not typically treated as one, and 和製漢語 specifically says it is not. Just with wasei kango in general, I think we should be cautious in what we write until we can find a source that studies the uses of this word longitudinally. There are a lot of contradictory claims on this in the publications to date, including dictionaries. I realise there is a potential now for people to subconsciously reference our etymology as we grow (Talk:蝴蝶). Wyang (talk) 22:38, 26 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Indeed. I have contacted the editor who made the changes. The etymology as it currently stands is inaccurate, as Chinese dictionaries like moedict show usages in classical Chinese, albeit for a different sense. While we don't have academic studies at our fingertips to draw a definite conclusion, we should not be assuming borrowing from Japanese. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 00:33, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

, you might want to look at this discussion before making the etymology more misleading (claiming that Chinese 時間 comes from Japanese without mentioning its usage in Classical Chinese before any possible Japanese influence). — justin(r)leung { (t...) 00:47, 28 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I thought Wyang would help with the minor details later. I just undid that annoying format someone made. How is it now? ばかFumiko￥talk 02:03, 28 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I think it's still debatable whether it is wasei kango. If you can find any reliable source that has evidence for it being wasei kango, we could keep it like that, but if not, it may be misleading. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 04:34, 28 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Note that wasei kango is not exactly words coined by the Japanese, but also attested Middle Chinese compounds re-purposed by them. Source I can give, but I'm just too, well, lazy to do that. I'll probably do it later. ばかFumiko￥talk 07:23, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Quick question about 儑
I was just curious about the second definition and reading given for 儑 and whether having the conditional clause 的話 in "開玩笑的话" affects the "開玩笑" (to joke, to kid, to make a joke, to joke around) meaning as far as translation into English goes. Thanks! Bumm13 (talk) 13:09, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Here 的話 is not a particle for the conditional clause, but is to be interpreted literally: "'s word; word of (joking)". Combined with 開玩笑 (to joke), it means "joke; jest". Wyang (talk) 23:20, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

䮴
I was just wondering about the phrase 馬傷穀病, specifically the "穀" (grain, corn) part. Is it referring to a disease somehow caused by what a horse eats? Anyway, thanks for the help as always! Bumm13 (talk) 23:42, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi. This description doesn't make much sense to me either unfortunately... my guess is that 䮚䮴 means "disease of the horse caused by the grain eaten". Wyang (talk) 13:04, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

場
何以場字於普通話讀上聲？ --kc_kennylau (talk) 13:19, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * 問得好. 場字在方言中幾乎全部是陽平調，只有官話和晉語有上聲和陽平的異讀. 元《中原音韻》仍標為平調. 我猜想這是俗音，是因場字較常用，原本的濁聲母一直拖低其調值，使陽平(35)變為上聲(213). 我現在想潛字的上聲異讀可能也是這個原因. Wyang (talk) 13:47, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

一流
Hello. I've been looking at this word and the says that the Mandarin reading undergoes a fourth tone sandhi. But I personally read it as "yīliú" when it means "first-class", only "yìliú" when it means. The same thing applies to and. --Dine2016 (talk) 16:00, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi. Yes, you are absolutely right. When it means 第一, it is unaffected by sandhi. I've corrected these entries. Wyang (talk) 00:39, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

火車票
Hi Wyang. Any idea why 火車 in this entry comes up as "fire vehicle"? ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 07:09, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi. It was displaying "fire vehicle" as I modified the code to make the module fetch the  parameter in  when it exists on the individual pages, so that 海底針 has the gloss of "needle at the bottom of the sea" rather than "something unknowable ..." at 女人心，海底針 (perhaps it wasn't such a good idea?). In some entries the literal meaning is important in compounds, while in others it is not. Anyway I have changed the algorithm to make it display both the literal meaning and actual meaning, so it is now "fire vehicle; train". Hopefully this is better. Wyang (talk) 12:17, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Korean hanja compounds
Do you know of the best way to format compounds in Korean hanja entries? The plain links and lack of consistent formatting bothers me. —suzukaze (t・c) 08:14, 20 August 2017 (UTC)


 * No, and I don't think there is one either. The Hanja entries as a whole needs a format overhaul. 樂 looks horrible; the eumhun template should be redesigned to match the intelligence of the Japanese readings template. As a headword template it is way too long. Wyang (talk) 08:23, 20 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree completely. —suzukaze (t・c) 08:34, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

祱
Hi Wyang, The second reading for 祱 (lèi) is 門祭. I have no problem with the second character's usage but am somewhat unsure about the use of 門 in this word or phrase. Maybe something about "family" or "house"? Unsure due to 門 having a large number of meanings. Thanks! Bumm13 (talk) 23:46, 26 August 2017 (UTC)


 * This sense seems to be one of those hapax legomena; the explanation of 門祭 was recorded in , and subsequent dictionaries have inherited this explanation verbatim, afraid of misinterpreting. My guess would be that it referred to "a rite of worship". Wyang (talk) 00:27, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

automatic display of definitions in Derived terms
Hi Wyang. Would there be any way to automatically display definitions for terms listed in Derived terms, similar to how we display definitions in the hanzi boxes? This would mean we wouldn't have to manually add them like we do sometimes. Just an idea. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 01:12, 27 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi Tooironic. I haven't thought about this thoroughly before - it sounds like a good idea, if the definitions can be cleanly fetched from derived term pages and aesthetically displayed, without placing a too high memory load on the entry. . I have several ideas for a more interactive, dynamic and visually appealing layout in Chinese entries, one of which is a hover-over display of pronunciations and definitions for Chinese terms in an entry, similar to what these websites are doing. Wyang (talk) 01:23, 27 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I think it's a good idea, but I don't know how necessary it would be. If we do do this, would we be listing the first definition or all the definitions? We should also consider setting a maximum number of derived terms for there to be automatic definitions. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 01:49, 27 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think displaying the first definition would be more than adequate. Derived terms rarely have more than one translation anyway. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 10:46, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

白菜
Hi Wyang. Do you know if 白菜 should be translated as bok choy or napa cabbage? Or both? When I eat 白菜 in China it's usually the latter, but our entry suggests the former. Thanks. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 00:45, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It could be both, and it can also be 小白菜 (see the images from search engines). In northern China it is usually napa cabbage, very rarely bok choy. It would be a good candidate for zh-dial, although it is quite complex... Wyang (talk) 00:58, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * 白菜 is bok choy (小白菜) in Cantonese, which is probably why the English name for 小白菜 is bok choy. It's gonna be challenging since it involves several overlapping names. I'm slowly compiling a list of names for 白菜 and related terms. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 05:25, 31 August 2017 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks guys. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 10:39, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Here is a list of definitions for different kinds of 白菜 based on different regions. I'm not sure how that could turn into zh-dial tables. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 20:52, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Just to be difficult, I might as well point out that the most common type of the European cabbage (Brassica oleracea) is known as white cabbage... Chuck Entz (talk) 21:54, 4 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Wow!!! I think it would be good to have dial tables for the two things below for now. 油菜 is a bit vague. The others, such as 圓白菜, can come later. Wyang (talk) 13:45, 5 September 2017 (UTC)


 * {| class="wikitable"


 * Chinese.cabbage-01.jpg
 * Baby Pak Choi (02).JPG
 * }
 * }

漨
As a second reading and definition of 漨, zdic.net gives "煩郁". Does this mean annoying, bothersome? I just wanted to check because none of the Chinese-English dictionaries seem to give the specific meaning of the word/phrase. Cheers! Bumm13 (talk) 11:46, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi. Its definition is (～浡) 煩鬱 (simplified: 烦郁), which means (1) thick; dense; (2) glum; downcast; depressed. Here, 漨浡 refers to the first definition ("thick; dense; profuse; abundant (e.g. of clouds)"). It is essentially a variant of 蓬勃. Wyang (talk) 12:41, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

漮
Hi Wyang, sorry to be a pest but I'm trying to figure out the first definition of 漮. It's given as "水虚；水的中心有空处". Does it mean water deficiency? The second part of that definition in Chinese seems like it's quite literal ("spot or place in the center of water") but I'm not quite parsing it. Thanks again for your help! Bumm13 (talk) 18:03, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi, 水虚；水的中心有空处 seems to say "the middle spot of a pool of water, where there is no water (due to the ground being elevated?)". Sorry! I'm not understanding this completely either. Wyang (talk) 13:53, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

雲手
I came across this online video, and I think it must be some instructional video on doing cloud hands. If so, I think it would be an excellent external link for the subject title entry. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 05:51, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * As we're not an encyclopedia, I think external links to YouTube are almost never appropriate for non-signed languages. However, I have added a video I found on Wikimedia Commons to the entry. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 05:55, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
 * But the video from Wikimedia Commons concerns tai chi, while the one from YouTube concerns Classical Chinese Dance. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 06:05, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Arabic on Wiktionary
I'm curious if you have any thoughts on this. I don't know how much you've studied Arabic, but I've noted that you have some interest, and the technical challenges in handling it seem to me quite similar to those for Chinese. I feel like if we only had a robust infrastructure for Arabic as a macrolanguage, with support for dialectal synonyms and pronunciations, we might be able to keep more serious Arabic contributors. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 16:29, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I've said in other places that the main problem is the lack of comprehensive, easy-to-use, reliable resources for Arabic dialects. And furthermore the fact that the dialects don't have a standard orthography makes it that much more difficult. I don't know which of these problems are shared with Chinese. --WikiTiki89 17:18, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
 * There may not be comprehensive resources for the Arabic macrolanguage as a whole, but there are pretty good dictionaries for a vast array of topolects, and well described sound correspondences. Surely that would be sufficient? —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:34, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
 * , for Chinese, while there are certain works that have tables comparing words in different topolects, the vast majority is dictionaries or vocabulary lists that have Standard Chinese glosses. If there are dictionaries/vocabulary lists for particular topolects, that should be sufficient. That being said, most of them follow a similar grouping by category, which makes it easier to find words. I'm not sure if the Arabic resources would be sorted by category or have an index sorted by category. The issue with orthography might be a bigger problem. In Chinese, since the words are written in Chinese characters, cognate words are generally written with the same orthography. There are variations in orthography, but I generally find the more "etymologically-sound" orthography for the purpose of comparison. I'm not sure if this approach to orthography is possible for Arabic. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 20:46, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
 * What about using primary sources that can be found online such as newspapers? There would be no information on pronunciation, but they would provide the orthography. DTLHS (talk) 21:18, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Newspapers are written in Standard Arabic, not in dialects. Only informal communication might be written in dialects, otherwise the dialects are mainly spoken languages. Also music and movies are usually in dialect. --WikiTiki89 21:36, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, the focus should be on MSA. Sorry to be blunt, but if Arabs don't care about written dialects and don't think they are worthy enough to write in dialects, we have no choice. There are simply not enough dictionaries and references to make the infrastructure work for all dialects.
 * Some other points: the majority of the vocabulary will share the spellings, just like in Chinese, the differences will be only in pronunciations. Providing inflections is going to be a challenge, especially for verbs - this is where there is a substantial difference from MSA.
 * The vocabulary, which differs from MSA is not very numerous but they are the most common words. Dialects are also more acceptable to loanwords. IMO, common loanwords or dialectal words used in multiple dialects should simply be marked "colloquial, regional" and can be used in MSA, even if Arabs don't consider them part of fuṣḥā.
 * As for resources for dialects, they are limited but they do exist. As I said, the differences are mostly in most common words, which can be collected even from Egyptian, Moroccan, Iraqi, etc. phrasebooks. An Egyptian and Gulf Arabic textbook, a Moroccan textbook and English-Arabic (Egyptian/Syrian) dictionary. The last two are romanised. I've seen Iraqi, Lebanese, Syrian, Tunisian and Algerian resources.
 * The infrastructure can be experimented with. A good start would be words, which are all different in dialects, like the word for what. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 00:01, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
 * To respond to your points individually: Yes, the focus should be on MSA, but right now it's almost exclusively MSA, and that's a problem. There are a lot more resources out there than you are aware of, even for dialects that lack an ISO code and have zero representation on Wiktionary currently (e.g. Nigerian Arabic). Anyway, "what" would be a good place to try out an modelled on, and قابلة is an example of a low-tech attempt of what should eventually be an  modelled on . —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 00:49, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I only made some examples of books you can get from shelves of some bookstores. The research of course exists. One major difference between the Chinese and the Arabic modules would be that dialectal Arabic transliterations would need to be entered, never generated. MSA transliterations and phonemic transcriptions can be generated from vocalised Arabic (for most and regular words). Dialectal pronunciation are only partially predictable from the standard Arabic readings. Transliterations are not standardised, so if a dialectal dictionary could be used as a resource, a lot of work will be required to normalise it. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 01:15, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

The infrastructure we currently have only allows automatic phonemic IPA transcriptions of Arabic. We need phonetic, even for MSA, which requires more work. To add some positives to the discussions - a quick win would be to add phonemic transcriptions for Arabic dialects based on transliterations only. The Arabic module already allows to do that for MSA - for irregularly pronounced words or when it's difficult to determine the reading. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 01:38, 9 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree with a lot of the points by Anatoli and Wikitiki above, and I also agree that the lack of reasonable infrastructure is often a big disincentive for native editors of these languages, although paradoxically those are exactly the editors who would best spearhead such infrastructure projects. The Arabs do not seem interested in writing in dialects, perhaps even less so than in Chinese. I think an entry format similar to Chinese would be very beneficial for Arabic. There are a number of things that need to be considered:
 * (1) how dialectal pronunciations (e.g. in ) should be managed: via a central template ? At present there is which IMO looks like the embryonic form of a pronunciation template that we will need. What (systemic) resources for dialectal pronunciations do we have and what dialects do they cover? For these dialects, what input should we use for the dialects in this template - phonetic Arabic script (for that particular dialect), Latin-script transcription or IPA? The answer is probably both dialect- and resource-dependent, and it may have to be designed by Wiktionary, like what we did for many Chinese dialects. Arabic varieties are incredibly complex, but we can start with the major ones, such as maṣri and šāmi.
 * (2) lexicon: I suspect nouns are going to be the most conserved and easiest to handle. Many textbooks (and general dictionaries even) may have a limited number of dialectal correspondences―an example is here (a screenshot of my textbook)―but I suspect the majority of our information will come from specific dialectal dictionaries. I remember User:GeekEmad has shared his resources on Maghrebi Arabic here; it would be good if relevant dialectal lexical resources can be listed, by variety, on a central reference page (WT:About Arabic/references). This will overlap with #1, as many dictionaries will have pronunciations or phonetic Arabic-script forms, followed or preceded by the glosses. In some (or many?) cases the dialectal forms are likely to be unattestable, so will need to suppress the links, though the information of the lexical differences in the  itself is already invaluable, unlikely to be found elsewhere.
 * (3) grammar: This is probably the most variable and the most difficult to deal with, although there is at present no information on dialectal conjugations on Wiktionary anyway (that I'm aware of). It could well be the case that we will only be able to generate MSA conjugation tables on Wiktionary, but that is less of a concern for now. Our focus should be on: (1) the presentation of Arabic entries; (2) how dialectal forms of Arabic should be written, and (3) how the dialectal phonetic information should be handled (hopefully systematically, akin to ). Wyang (talk) 04:12, 9 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I am not concerned how this is implemented but MSA will always stay the default and the only one that can more or less rely on the conversion from the Arabic script into transliteration first, then transcription. Phonologically, dialects have less consonants (some are merged) but they may use some some foreign sounds, which have also penetrated fuṣḥā. Dialects are also more likely to use vowels e/ē, o/ō, which are missing in the classical Arabic and can't be rendered with the Arabic script.
 * I will start listing what I can find or what I possess. I can use my small Arabic-English/English-Arabic Concise Romanized Dictionary for Syrian (or the whole Levantine) and Egyptian (ISBN 0781806860).
 * You're right, dialectal grammar is not handled in Wiktionary and inflection table only cater for MSA. Dialectal inlfections are much simpler, have less forms or missing altogether - only a fraction of ʾiʿrāb but duality, plurality, genders and verb conjugations are all used. To some extent, dialectal conjugations can be taken from MSA but there are differences and verbs that are only used in dialects, need some handling as well.
 * I have just created, which has all required info for MSA and I have added the Syrian (Levantine?) and Egyptian pronunciations from my dictionary above. Although the declension table only refers to MSA, the rows, which say "informal" are used in most dialects as well. Notably the nominative indefinite plural form is not used in dialects. The transliteration is, apparently the standard one.

Pronunciation

 * --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 06:32, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I think we'll want to use Latin script input to produce IPA, for the reasons Anatoli gave. Dialectal spellings are very unstandardised, but tend to cleave to MSA orthography where possible, so that shouldn't be too hard to generate given the pagetitle and dialectal romanisation. What has to be done first in order to create a pronunciation template that can handle a few major dialects correctly and appropriately? —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 23:08, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I think creating some help pages for each of the dialects we would like to include would be a good idea. This was the approach used by the Chinese editors before writing modules to generate dialect pronunciations, e.g. About Chinese/Xiang, About Chinese/Gan, so that we had an idea of the phonologies. Also we should think about whether we would like to produce phonetic IPA, phonemic IPA or both; I suspect the current output of on  is actually phonetic. BTW, Wikipedia's  is quite well-written; I found the table in the section  very informative. Wyang (talk) 00:26, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Dialectal phonology is very close to the standard. Some consonants have merged, so dialects lack some consonants but they use some consonants more often than MSA - g, č, ž. Consonants v and p are only used in loanwords. If anything is missing, they could be added later, when the need arises. Yes, transcriptions in are phonetic. For phonemic, we could just use notations like "ʾāble", "gābla", etc. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:19, 10 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I have written WT:About Arabic/Egyptian. Please beware, as there may be still be errors. Does this conform to the sort of page that will be needed? (Note that our current Egyptian Arabic content is romanised in a variety of ways, and often lacks romanisation altogether by using IPA instead; this system is an extension of how we normally romanise Arabic here.) —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 03:22, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Great start! I really like the page. Can't really comment on the phonology, but the format is what I had in mind. Additional columns can be added to show how the transcriptions in different dictionaries differ. I wonder if the phonetic pronunciation is largely predictable from the romanisation; if so, some module (Module:arz-pron) can be created to handle the romanisation-to-IPA conversions. Wyang (talk) 03:59, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I've intended that the pronunciation should be predictable from the romanisation, yes, although there will be exceptions and potential edge cases I haven't considered. I'd really like to try out a module, but I don't even actually speak Arabic (yet), so I'd need a fluent (preferably native) speaker to help with testcases. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 04:31, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * It can but the transliteration can only give the phonemic pronunciation, e.g. : Egyptian romanisation "gamīl" -> /ɡa.miːl/ (phonemic), [ɡæˈmiːl] (phonetic). Like many others, the choice between vowels [ɑ(ː)] and [æ(ː)] is not so straightforward. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 06:11, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Actually, that shouldn't be a problem — if no other vowel is between a/ā and an emphatic consonant, it goes to [ɑ(ː)]. Please tell me if you have any examples that can't be predicted based on that alone (with emphatic consonants as defined on the page). —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 07:43, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Erutuon described it better than I could have. For me, adding dialectal phonemic pronunciation wouldn't be a problem, if there was a decision to merge Arabic dialects but there isn't. Arabic speakers don't realise the gains dialects may get, if dialects are treated as "Arabic". Phonetic transcription is not so easily available but a phonemic can be done based on transliterations. They should be normalised to match our standards, though. As I said before, we might need to add one or two odd regional sounds but the modules are about ready to work with dialects. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 09:47, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Regarding back and front, I see two usable options described in the Wikipedia article: considering them separate phonemes, or transcribing certain cases of r, b, m, l as emphatic.
 * In the emphatic consonant option, we would have, for instance, tigāṛa "commerce",  ṃayya "water" ), with a dot indicating emphasis, as with the conventional emphatic consonants (aside from q). I guess in this analysis, if a word contains a back a  but there isn't a conventional emphatic consonant (ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ẓ, q), then one of the consonants r, b, m, l in the word is considered to be emphatic, so that there is a emphatic consonant to trigger emphasis spreading (backing). The emphasis-triggering behavior of r seems, however, to be predictable, unlike that of the other consonants. Not sure how to decide which consonant is emphatic if there's more than one of r, b, m, l in the word. Maybe then all of them are emphatic? (The Wikipedia article gives the example ḅāḅa  "patriarch" contrasted with bāba  "".) Against the emphatic consonant option is the fact that it's somewhat misleading: at least, I don't see it mentioned that r, b, m, l are actually emphatic phonetically (that is, velarized, uvularized, or pharyngealized).
 * As for the option in which front and back a are phonemes, I'm not sure how they would be transcribed: æ and a, æ and å? (tigāra or tigå&#x304;rå contrasting with tigǣri "commercial" .) Considering front and back a to be phonemes has the benefit of not requiring the postulation of emphatic consonants that are not phonetically emphatic. But it seems to ignore the fact that the emphasis-triggering behavior of r is predictable. And I wonder if it would require that the other emphatic consonants not be considered phonemes, as the two are connected. That is a problem, if emphatic consonants affect the pronunciation of vowels besides a as the Wikipedia article states. (There's currently no source given for that claim. It is true in other varieties of colloquial Arabic at least.) — Eru·tuon 08:31, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * If you read WT:About Arabic/Egyptian, you will see that I have already addressed that issue by choosing to denote emphatic ṛ, ḅ, etc. This seems to be the most common analysis in the references I've read, probably because Arabic is traditionally very consonant-heavy and vowel-light, so until it evolves more, it is still most convenient for morphophonological analysis to consider them as extra consonants. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 18:11, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I think it's the easiest choice to implement. Probably the pronunciation module will be able to display both analyses by transforming one version to the other ( &rarr; ). — Eru·tuon 20:49, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I have now created WT:About Arabic/Moroccan as well; the same caveats apply. This might be enough to test out a module, although they need to be checked, and more of these ought to be written., maybe you could write up a similar page for Urban Levantine and any other topolects you are familiar with? —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:22, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your efforts in creating the pages. They are very good and can definitely be used, however, they require quite an effort, if this info is not readily available. For working on transliteration and transcription modules, strictly speaking, they are not required, as long as the transliteration is correct. I mean, they won't help to provide 100% accurate mappings from MSA to ʿāmmiyya. Other points - vocalisations are mainly designed for MSA, so when they are used in dialects, then they cause confusion, e.g. should, which is pronounced "yōm" in most eastern dialects be rendered with a fatḥa and a sukūn or just a ḍamma? Some rules about merged consonants are helpful but you still need to know the original MSA spelling and the transliteration (pronunciation). The words can sometimes be respelled to show the actual, not the original pronunciation. I will update further as I have to go now--Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 05:50, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Continued: OK, if I write in Levantine Arabic "أنا مش هون" (I am not here) - all I need is the spelling and the romanisation: "ʾana muš hōn". I can't rely on automatic transliteration at all and I won't necessarily need Arabic vocalisation, which are seldom used in dialects, anyway - just for disambiguation. Even if a table shows how dialectal pronunciations differ from MSA, it's still unpredictable because it's not prescribed, so may not always be "ḍ" but "ẓ", as in standard Arabic and as you also wrote yourself on the Egyptian page,  is not necessarily "ʾ" (as قلب "ʾalb" in Egyptian) but can be "q" as well, as in القاهرة "el-qahera". --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 06:21, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * The plan is to input the transliteration manually, so none of that will be an issue. --WikiTiki89 17:45, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * This is sort of like taking Spanish input and trying to produce French or Italian pronunciation. It's worth a try, but I'm not sure how well it will work on some of the historical oddities that happen in language diversification. I hope we can avoid giving automated "guesses" when we have no data- that was an issue we ran into with Ancient Greek dialects some time ago, and it raises questions about how to apply CFI to such things. Also, we have some very expert and talented people working on this, but I notice a conspicuous lack of input from native speakers- in past discussions they've provided some very helpful insights. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:29, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I think you have misunderstood what's going on. As far as I'm concerned, there's no plan to generate pronunciation in one lect from pronunciation in another lect, and no intent to use Arabic script to generate IPA. These pages provide a standard romanisation that can be used to generate IPA for that topolect unambiguously, with a secondary goal of generating orthography (although that will need the MSA spelling as well). —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 16:22, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * No, I didn't misunderstand, just wanted to make sure what the plan is. Without the official merger of topolects, which may require a vote, the only thing we can do now is provide additional pronunciations for dialects on terms, which share the same spellings. I am not too keen to make entries for dialectal spellings when it's not clear if Arabic dialects are eventually going to be merged and what is going to happen with inflection tables, etc. @Wyang, do you feel that we highjacked your talk page? It may not be fair to expect major work from you on Arabic and non-standard Aarbic when you're just a beginner in it. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 22:27, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Haha, no I don't mind at all. The discussion started here, plus reading the knowledgeable discuss is enjoyable. :) I feel like it would be helpful to illustrate how the proposed pronunciation template may look with certain examples, e.g. for entry ..., the format of the code is: ..., and the effect would be ..., with each dialect requiring a transcription input. Wyang (talk) 00:29, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, I started the discussion hoping to piggyback on your coding skills and success with Chinese, but I'm not really all that knowledgeable. I imagined that the template would be basically like but intelligent: able to handle standardised romanisation and convert to IPA (and hopefully orthography as well, although that's not as pressing, especially as some dialects are entirely unwritten), able to add notes about gender or usage for each, able to represent dialects flexibly by city rather than country (and even sociolect, so we can input Jewish Baghdad, etc). —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 04:42, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree with Chuck, though, in that the input of native speakers is invaluable on this, but it seems the Arabs themselves are not as interested (as we would like) in linguistically and computationally analysing their colloquial speech on Wiktionary. :) Which may mean we will need to do some serious literature and reference crunching ourselves. There seemed to have been a misunderstanding with Mahmud regarding the format of the template to be designed and the role of transcription, which have now been resolved. Overall I find your transcription scheme (using ad hoc letters such as ḅ to account for vowel variation, making use of ž) quite reasonable, Metaknowledge. I hope the project can go ahead, although I also think that we should systematically research the phonology of Egyptian Arabic before we can implement it. Finding a dictionary which transcribes the Egyptian speech reasonably faithfully would be desirable. I'm a lot freer after next week and can help out then, to the best of my ability. Wyang (talk) 11:31, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

漷
The 漷 has three separate readings with their own definitions! I'm asking specifically about the huò reading: "水勢相激貌" It seems to say something about "power/potential" and "fierce/violent" + "appearance" (of water). I think I'm close but I'll have you clarify the meaning. Cheers! Bumm13 (talk) 08:48, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Quite close! 水勢相激貌 can be decomposed as: 水勢 (lit. the state of water; i.e. the flow of water; the current) + 相 (each other) + 激 (to surge) + 貌 (lit. "appearance". When it is used in Chinese lexicography like this, it denotes an ―a word which tries to give a vivid impression of a scene, a sound or an idea). This sense of 漷 (huo4) is only used in 泧漷 and means "tempestuous, turbulent (of a current)". Wyang (talk) 11:00, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

日本漢字音 and Middle Chinese
Hello. Would it be possible to deduce the Japanese 呉音・漢音 algorithmically from Middle Chinese? I've found 漢和辞典s to disagree with each other sometimes; for example, the go'on of 丂 is just "こう" in 大漢和辞典 and 広漢和辞典 but "こう<かう" in the 1914 漢和大辞書. Another application might be this. --Dine2016 (talk) 14:55, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
 * It should definitely be possible. That was my original vision for as well, i.e. that it will incorporate the Sinoxenic equivalents in JKV for each MC pronunciation; an example of the old version of the template as used on 斗 can be see at Talk:斗 (as manual jkv input into the template). What is needed though is good sources on the correspondences between 呉音・漢音 and MC. I've got a couple on Korean and Vietnamese, but I'm sure others have published their analyses of the initial and rime correspondences for Japanese and MC. The algorithm for MC > Mandarin is at Module:ltc-pron/predict, and the raw data on which this was generated was Module talk:ltc-pron/predict/raw, with the resulting reflex tables being Outcomes of Middle Chinese finals and Outcomes of Middle Chinese initials. That turned out to be a much more intricate project than I had planned... as each rime affected the outcome of initials in sometimes very subtle ways, and vice versa. Conceivably, something similar is needed to write the deduction algorithm for JKV. Each initial and rime will have different reflexes in the modern readings and conditioned, respectively, by the rime and initial (and potentially tone). Wyang (talk) 22:12, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Etymology for 羋
Hi Frank, just a couple of concerns about the etymology of the surname 羋:
 * Could you find out what the title of the article by Yan Xuequn (CAAAL 21, 1983) is?
 * Do the archaeological findings support such an etymology? The bronze inscriptions use for this surname. Also note that Guangyun says that  is the Chu word for "mother". — justin(r)leung { (t...) 05:02, 14 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi Justin. With 1) I believe it is this article:
 * Yan, Xuequn (严学宭) (1983), “On the Chu Nationality, Chu Dialect and Chu Sound”, Computational Analyses of Asian & African Languages, 21: 131–137.
 * Yan, Xuequn (严学宭) (1983), “On the Chu Nationality, Chu Dialect and Chu Sound”, Computational Analyses of Asian & African Languages, 21: 131–137.


 * The journal also has a Japanese name アジア・アフリカ語の計数研究, and the article's Japanese title is 楚人と楚方言と楚音, archived online here, but I don't have the authorisation to view it. It may be better to list it as apud in the etymology if it can't be accessed.
 * Various sources say the archaeological records universally show, and that was tongjia character by subsequent-era scholars. I haven't been able to locate good sources on the topic, only found these from the Chinese literature that's archived online, which aren't super-useful. I think to understand this in more detail may require consulting the specialised references, on the Chu manuscripts or inscriptions. Wyang (talk) 05:58, 14 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your thorough response! How should apud be used? Should it be "Schuessler, 2007, apud Yan, 1983"?
 * Also, for some reason the download link to the zip file doesn't work. I've also found a few articles related to this (not sure if they coincide with yours), but they all don't really address . — justin(r)leung { (t...) 16:00, 14 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I would recommend ( apud ). It seems the 芈 in the title 芈.zip cannot be handled by the site, so the file just becomes 'zip', lol. Here it is with the proper name. Two of the articles were also found in your search; the articles aren't really that helpful to be honest, since most of them are outdated or not relying on the latest research on Old Chinese. Wyang (talk) 22:00, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

亙
Hi. Would it possible to get 亙 use the Middle Chinese pronunciation located at Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/亘? --Dine2016 (talk) 13:56, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Yep! You can just move it across to Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/亙 if you think 亘 shouldn't have the Middle Chinese, otherwise you can copy the content to the nonexistent page. Wyang (talk) 13:59, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. 亘 also has its own MC pronunciations "荀緣切 先平" (for xuān) and "胡官切 寒平" (for huán?), though they are not in the database as they're not in 廣韻. --Dine2016 (talk) 14:13, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
 * This was discussed before: Module talk:zh/data/ltc-pron/蝦. At the moment only Guangyun fanqie readings are included, since there is no phonetic reconstruction of the fanqie system from other rime books, so to an English speaker the fanqie reading itself will not be very useful. Wyang (talk) 14:19, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm completely 外行 at this, but it seems that of the three readings of 亨 in Guangyun,, the latter two are written with 烹 and 享 nowadays. Would it be possible/desirable to get the pronunciation sections of 烹 and 享 duplicate and cite 亨 #2 and #3 for their MC pronunciations? (享 could also cite the sole reading of 亯, which is identical with 亨 #3.) --Dine2016 (talk) 15:12, 14 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I think that would be reasonable. 亨 was a just a written variant of 烹 and 享 in ancient times, and Guangyun recorded the pronunciations of those words on 亨. Wyang (talk) 22:29, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

POJ terms
This is a following of User_talk:Wyang/Archive6. I have modified Module:zh-see to support POJ forms. See Tiong-kok as an example. However I don't know whether this is a good idea. (The heading should also be discussed.)--2001:DA8:201:3512:3D32:5FBD:8099:19C7 12:33, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I support reducing the amount of content on POJ pages if the character page exists. and others I've missed. Wyang (talk) 12:40, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I support too, as per my message on that talk page. It would be more palatable for the community to have an L3 header and the headword, like pinyin entries. Note that non-registered users still have issues creating simplified Chinese entries. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 12:51, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Also the cat name Category:Min Nan Pe̍h-ōe-jī form should be in plural - "forms". --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 12:54, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
 * My stance remains the same as before. —suzukaze (t・c) 20:36, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I still don't feel too comfortable with using for this. Zhuang uses  for Sawndip entries, Vietnamese uses  for Nom entries, Korean uses  for hanja entries. In all of these cases, the template is used in the less common form of the written language, so I think it's fine to have a similar template for POJ. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 20:55, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
 * From the maintenance and consistency point of view, these can also use soft redirects. The count of lemmas would also show the true picture.--Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 21:23, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

沆瀣一氣
In this term 乾符 is simplified to 干符, I don't know how to fix it.--2001:DA8:201:3512:1D2:5209:1889:E3C 09:31, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Fixed now. P.S. Thanks for your edits in Chinese! Lots of really interesting literary words and loanwords, and I don't even know how you found them. Please seriously consider creating an account. Wyang (talk) 09:40, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Translations
Would, be a good translation for ? [ ˌiˑvã̠n̪ˑ ˈs̪kr̺ud͡ʒʔ ˌn̺ovã̠n̪ˑˈt̪ɔ̟t̪ːo ] (parla con me) 21:43, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes. Wyang (talk) 21:46, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Sorry. May you check out Mandarin translations at it never rains but it pours? [ ˌiˑvã̠n̪ˑ ˈs̪kr̺ud͡ʒʔ ˌn̺ovã̠n̪ˑˈt̪ɔ̟t̪ːo ] (parla con me) 17:19, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I've removed some of the translations that don't really correspond to the English proverb. Wyang (talk) 02:54, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

miscellaneous place names
What categories should we add for miscellaneous place names like 江南, 江淮, 關中, etc.? zh:geography? I note that is the case for 嶺南, but I thought zh:geography might be more terms relating to geography, not toponyms. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 07:08, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Definitely not Geography, it is an abuse of the category perpetrated by one single user. I used to think we should use Place names (which seems logical?), but recently I read the category description and such use seems to be wrong, and now I think it should be Places or its finer subcategories. Or China. —suzukaze (t・c) 07:13, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree. I think these should go to Category:zh:Regions of China, a subcategory of Category:zh:China (cf. the similar category of Category:en:Regions of the United States of America). Wyang (talk) 12:08, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Formatting
Was my edit wrong straightforward? Or was I just misusing ? Please let me know. [ ˌiˑvã̠n̪ˑ ˈs̪kr̺ud͡ʒʔ ˌn̺ovã̠n̪ˑˈt̪ɔ̟t̪ːo ] (parla con me) 09:39, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Just stay off languages you don't know, as you have been repeatedly warned about please. You are creating more trouble than benefit for editors that work on these languages. Wyang (talk) 09:41, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Just asking, you did not tell me what exactly was mistaken. I really want to help. [ ˌiˑvã̠n̪ˑ ˈs̪kr̺ud͡ʒʔ ˌn̺ovã̠n̪ˑˈt̪ɔ̟t̪ːo ] (parla con me) 09:43, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Please don't. Wyang (talk) 09:44, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * But why did you undo all of my edit? That was the question you did not reply to. If I do something which is not fine, at least I want to know what it is that makes it so. Sorry if I’m being so insistent. [ ˌiˑvã̠n̪ˑ ˈs̪kr̺ud͡ʒʔ ˌn̺ovã̠n̪ˑˈt̪ɔ̟t̪ːo ] (parla con me) 09:48, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Have you observed how Chinese entries are usually formatted at all on Wiktionary? They don't use markups such as in definitions, and they don't use  to list synonyms at all- it seriously screws the formatting up. What is the root of the problem is your unfamiliarity with these languages you are editing, which means you are unable to observe how things are usually done by editors working on them. What is exacerbating the problem is the attitude that your edits are infallible, which has led to your repeated ignorance of warnings about your errors as well as the previous block. Wyang (talk) 10:02, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Now that I can reply, why did you remove too then? I don’t see the point of undoing an edit altogether when part of it is helpful. Then of course, now that I know, I will not add  or  to Chinese entries again, which I was not actually warned about, as you wrote here. And I never said my edits are “infallible”. [ ˌiˑvã̠n̪ˑ ˈs̪kr̺ud͡ʒʔ ˌn̺ovã̠n̪ˑˈt̪ɔ̟t̪ːo ] (parla con me) 21:05, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * You have been warned before about your incompetence in Chinese, but you did not take it seriously, and proceeded to editing Chinese entries, assuming your edit was unproblematic and your knowledge in Chinese was sufficient. That was the reason for your block. Confucius said: "知之為知之，不知為不知，是知也. " (When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it - this is knowledge.) As a consequence, the Chinese have very minimal acceptance for people who pretend and act as if they know, when they actually do not. Wyang (talk) 08:24, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Brown hair in Chinese varieties
How could the term "brown hair" be translated into any variety of Chinese? We have, and , for instance.

(Off topic, but I feel you should have look at what I requested at the Chinese version of Wiktionary concerning categories for Northern Sami.) --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 12:04, 25 September 2017 (UTC)


 * It would be . With the category name, 北萨摩斯语 seems wrong. I think it should be 北萨米语 or 北方萨米语. Wyang (talk) 12:07, 25 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks, co-editor. The latter (北方薩米語/北方萨米语) is wheretoward I'm going to move the Northern Sami categories. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 12:13, 25 September 2017 (UTC)


 * You can just call me Frank... Wyang (talk) 12:17, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

濕氣
I have a question about this. According to dictionaries it refers to eczema or fungus infection of the hands or feet, so does that mean when we do 拔罐 what we are actually getting rid of is a skin or fungal thing? I always thought it referred to literally damp qi or something like that. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 05:48, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I can see how it might be both: fungal skin infections can be associated with dampness, so that might have given rise to the skin-infection sense based on the component words independently of the qi sense, which is presumably based on the principles of traditional Chinese medicine. Not that I know a lot about either... Chuck Entz (talk) 21:14, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, this reflects the "environmental factors → internal factors → disease" pathogenetic theory in traditional Chinese medicine. 濕 (dampness) is one of the six qi (六淫), which are environmental factors capable of causing human diseases, the other five being wind, cold, heat, summer heat and dryness. 濕氣 (damp qi) can mean several things: (1) dampness in the environment : i.e. oversaturation of air with water; moisture; humidity; (2) dampness in the body (濕邪): i.e. the body in a state of excessive dampness, resulting from dampness in the environment and internal imbalance. It is not necessary pathological at this stage, but it predisposes the individual to developing dampness-related illnesses. Signs and symptoms of having dampness in the body include: feelings of heaviness and lethargy, joint and muscle soreness and pain, chest tightness, reduced appetite, thick tongue coating, and bowel and bladder dysfunction. It is managed by behavioural changes (to avoid contact with humidity), dietary changes (which explains why spicy food in China is usually concentrated in humid regions e.g. Sichuan and Hunan ― this helps eliminate the bodily dampness), and therapies such as cupping; and finally (3) dampness as an evil in the body, and the various dampness-related diseases, such as eczema, hand and foot fungal infections, etc. Hope this helps! P.S. please check out Justinrleung's admin vote. Wyang (talk) 22:55, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

More JA pronunciation questions
Wyang, Eirikr, would you mind if I move these two discussions related to ja-pron to Template talk:ja-pron? I think they would find a better home there since they may prove useful to those interested in the function of the template. Nardog (talk) 06:16, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't mind at all. :) Wyang (talk) 06:39, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Done. :) Nardog (talk) 17:04, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Beer parlour/2017/August
Hey, thanks for your explanations there. I'm not sure how to respond to Thecurran's latest message (it's really weirding me out), could you look at it? Thanks. —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 17:40, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I've replied there. Now, talking about death by verbosity... Wyang (talk) 05:29, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
 * lol, thanks. I think we should just remove all of the syllable entries at this point; I don't think he is one to be convinced. —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 13:46, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
 * For that, you need to post in rfd. You can either move the whole discussion to rfd using the movedfrom and movedto templates to mark what you've done, or you can start a new discussion in rfd and just link to the Beer parlour discussion. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:59, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Weird talk pages
Out of curiosity, how are you finding these? —suzukaze (t・c) 05:08, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Just by using the search function to get all the talk pages without signatures by registered or IP users, and without texts such as RFV, RFD, RFC, transwiki, etc. Never knew there is so much fun material hidden on Wiktionary. Wyang (talk) 05:11, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
 * It's fun but you're deleting it :( —suzukaze (t・c) 05:37, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I was wondering the same thing. Keep up the good work. SemperBlotto (talk) 05:40, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

User:Bu193
Hi. Your block of this user seems a bit harsh to me: I don't think he's a troll himself, and all his French contributions are legit. I suppose he was just disagreeing with your removal of the bogus requests. --Barytonesis (talk) 10:04, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Ah, all right. They did add a bogus request themselves though:, which translates to "Crabs pass through the Bible through the energy of people". Eight hours later, it was followed by by a brand-new user (who posted 1 min after registering), which translated to "This apple boxer is carefully passing through an electronic swimming cemetery". Wyang (talk) 10:13, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Mmh, yes, it might be that they're doing legit work in the main space, but having fun on this specific page. So they might deserve a warning after all. --Barytonesis (talk) 10:16, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, he's definitely very suspicious... There's by a new user restoring the bogus requests (it's his single edit), and a minute later Bu193 is back after a day's absence. --Barytonesis (talk) 15:26, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I have the feeling that the recent spate of nonsensical requests by Charleston/Kyiv IPs and newly created European-name accounts are the work of one or two people, and this user is one of their Doppelgänger. I've blocked them for two weeks. Wyang (talk) 07:17, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Xiongnu and Xianbei languages
Although they are not directly attested, should Withionary Wiktionary have exceptional codes for Xiongnu and Xianbei languages? This will make display and categorization easier.--2001:DA8:201:3512:B0E8:A155:42B6:5D5D 07:26, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I think that would be good. I added a discussion at Grease pit/2017/October. Any other languages in mind? Wyang (talk) 08:08, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

The etymology of Korean subject particle
I'm curious if you have any insight into. If the particle is indeed attestable prior to the Japanese invasion of the late 1500s, perhaps this is cognate rather than borrowed? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 17:44, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Writing it as "unknown" would be more accurate IMO.
 * "The first use of this particle in 1572" was probably in reference to 洪允杓's 主格語尾 「-가」에 대하여 (1975), which says this particle "was not used in texts from the 15th century" and "its first attestation was in 1572 in a Hangul text".
 * It's earlier than the Japanese invasion, but not much earlier, and the earliest usages seemed to be limited and uncommon. There are at least four different theories in the literature regarding the etymology of this, one of them being the Japanese loan theory, e.g. in 鄭光's "主格 「가」의 發達에 對하여" (1968).
 * In pp. 412-413 of 홍윤표's 近代國語硏究 (1994), secondarily cited by 고광모's 주격조사 ‘-가’의 발달 (2013), the first use of the particle 가 was placed at mid-17th century, and the historical development for the usage is as follows:
 * Since the mid-17th century: used after nouns ending in -i or -y,
 * e.g. pwuli-ka ("mouth"), nay-ka ("scent"), poy-ka ("boat");
 * Since the mid-18th century: used after nouns ending in vowels/semivowels other than -i,
 * e.g. ca-ka ("one who"), soyngswo-ka, nwongso-ka ("farm work");
 * During the end of the 18th century: used briefly in the form of double particle -i/yka after nouns ending in vowels/semivowels other than -i,
 * e.g. to-yka ("road"), inkwu-yka ("population"), nwongso-yka ("farm work").
 * So the origin of this particle is still unsettled, but quite interesting. Wyang (talk) 11:35, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Good stuff, thank you. I'm curious, if it's not too much trouble, if you could add the four theories you know of to the entry?  And I'm also curious, what are your own thoughts?  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 22:20, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure, the etymology has been expanded to explain the various theories. I've had to read some of the publications... my impression is that this is probably multifactorial. -ga was probably there all along, well before the Japanese invasion, as some kind of emphatic, or interrogative particle. The awkwardness of the -i nominative after vowel-ending stems, especially -i/y nouns, brought on the use of the -ga in late 16th century. In Middle Korean, when nominative -i was attached to nouns ending in -i/y, there was no change to the noun ending, with the nominative case merely manifesting itself as a tonal difference on the preceding vowel. Thus, as the Middle Korean tones were gradually lost in the transition to Modern Korean, the -ga emphatic bloomed as a way to compensate for the loss of case marking in these nouns. The ‘vowel + vowel’ sequences are generally not stable in Korean, prone to coalescence, and in the case of ‘non -i/y ending noun + -i nominative’ sequences, such fusion often lead to monophthongisation and the disappearance of a tangible nominative particle. The spread of the -ga nominative to non -i/y ending nouns was facilitated by this vowel sequence stability. Whether Japanese -ga had a role in the development of the phonologically conditioned allomorph, I don't know. It may have accelerated the popularisation of -ga, but I think it is unlikely to have been the major factor since case particles are much harder to borrow. The biggest pulling force is from Korean itself, likely the instability and loss of the -i nominative marking after -i/y ending nouns, and vowel-ending nouns as a whole. I'm not exactly sure what the pushing force is, but it looks to be much less influential in the process.css Wyang (talk) 10:50, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * That's very interesting and most helpful, thank you. From what you describe, it does indeed look like 🇨🇬 has very little to do with things here.
 * I noticed in that one of the theories states "Developed from the interrogative particle ", but there is nothing on that page about the interrogative particle.  Looking at interrogative verb forms in the past, I had naively assumed that the interrogative was, but there's no such entry for that either.
 * At the risk of further grasping at straws :), I don't suppose there's any chance of a cognate relationship between the Korean interrogative and 🇨🇬? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 18:44, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Middle Korean was an interrogative suffix occurring in general questions, the same as the ga in the modern interrogative suffix . My brief search did not seem to yield much useful on the etymology of, but I would imagine that this is from Middle Korean , as the tense consonants were typically of secondary cluster origin when traced back. Korean interrogative -ka and Japanese interrogative  and genitive > nominative  are probably related as a proto-interrogative particle, so this isn't grasping at straws. :) Some references are Vovin (2010), Robbeets (2005), Francis-Ratte (2016, pp. 295). Wyang (talk) 08:10, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

嘴上沒毛，辦事不牢
I wanted to use "tl2=y" for 上, but I didn't get the output that I wanted. Could you please help me with this entry if you have time? Dokurrat (talk) 23:29, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * We should probably make the  parameter more flexible, just like , but MOD:cmn-pron is just a beast to work with. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 00:36, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Exactly. I would rewrite the function (or even the whole module) completely; it's doing my head in. But judging the amount of recent changes to Chinese entries yet to be checked, this is probably a task for next year... Wyang (talk) 07:39, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Some Arabic tracking categories
Hi Frank,

Are you available to do some work with Arabic modules? I wonder how hard would it be to add some tracking categories?
 * 1) First of all - wrong letters. Often, even native speakers use Persian letters, which are never used in Arabic (Persian would also use the reverse category). That way many copypasta problems will be discovered.
 * 2) Rare letters - special letters, which are acceptable but seldom used or only used in specific dialects, especially Maghrebi or some letters borrowed from Persian and other languages.
 * 3) I would also like to add some Arabic terms, which use sounds (IPA or transliterations), which are not part of Classical Arabic.

I'll give you the details later - I've gotta go now, just let me know if you're interested and it's not too hard and you may consider it in the next days or weeks. I'll try WT:GP otherwise. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 07:03, 18 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi Anatoli. I'm happy to help out. Some of these tasks can be done using data from the dump (such as retrieving a list of Arabic lemmas using non-Arabic letters), and others can be achieved by regular or tracking categories. Wyang (talk) 07:35, 18 October 2017 (UTC)


 * You just need a string of all the valid characters for Arabic, then put it under standardChars in Module:languages/data2 (see Greek / English for examples). DTLHS (talk) 07:41, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Done; should include most characters. To  and others, see  for a full list of the characters. — Eru·tuon 08:46, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you all! Sorry, I am getting very busy. : Thanks for this but what is the impact? Does it allow to create tracking categories?
 * Diacritics (listing most common), , , , , , , shouldn't be part of the title but can only be used in the headword, just like accents. Not sure if your range above covers .  is, of course, an exception, it contains a ّ|šadda and an ٰ|ʾalif ḵanjariyya.
 * Common errors in the title include Persian letters and, which identical to Arabic letters  (initial or middle position) and  (final position) and  (initial or middle position). I'd like to track those as errors, so that patrollers could pick them up.
 * Rare and regional letters are those that appear in About_Arabic and About_Arabic. Ideally, we should track their usage for all Arabic entries, including MSA (ar) or dialects. E.g. . These should be tracked as "Arabic terms spelled with ..." categories. Some may need checking and verifications.
 * For phonetic tracking, beneficial would be to have categories for all MSA (ar) terms having symbols o, ō, e, ē, č, ž, g and v in the transliteration, which are not part of Classical Arabic. E.g. . Perhaps, "irregular pronunciation categories"? --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 07:02, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Adding the standard characters pattern makes Module:headword automatically add categories for any characters not matched by the pattern. (Search "spelled with" in the module code to find the place where the category is added.) I guess some or many of the categories in are populated this way. (Categories for numbers and basic punctuation must be populated another way. They are included in the standard characters pattern for English.)
 * It's true that diacritics shouldn't appear in the title, but it may still be best to include them in the standard characters field, to avoid putting entries on diacritics, like, in "spelled with" categories. I would suggest Module:ar-headword as the place to add an error message for titles containing diacritics, and the other characters that you mention.
 * The standard characters for Arabic currently are, plus the regular punctuation characters. So titles with the regional letters and Persian letters should be being categorized now. — Eru·tuon 08:32, 19 October 2017 (UTC)


 * : Thanks, I'll try to makes sense of it but you seem to have included Persian numbers. Eastern Arabic numerals are, not . --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 08:43, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Oops, my mistake. Fixed. I saw they looked wrong, but somehow didn't figure out that they were the wrong codepoints. — Eru·tuon 09:08, 19 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Great, thanks! --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 10:43, 19 October 2017 (UTC)


 * For now, here is a list of entries in Category:Arabic lemmas (or its subcategories) containing characters other than the ones above: اخیرا, بَلٰی, تصویر, تقدیر, توجیه, تکرار, حسین, حمید, رویا, سیب, شیطانه, صوفیا, طبیب, طیف, عقیده, عیار, غلیظ, فرامین, محاصره‌, مرضیه, مهدی, هـ, وضعیت, پاول, کاظم, کتاب, کمیل, یارا. Some of them involve a miscategorisation by the template, and hence need.


 * Entries containing diacritics in their title: أبداً, جمهوريّة جزر فيجي, حتماً, كَلْب,. Wyang (talk) 09:11, 19 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Frank but I see mostly if not all Persian entries there. Persian character set is slightly different. Thanks for the diacritic entries. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 10:43, 19 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I have cleaned all the entries in the above list (some I had to mark for imminent deletion). But note that هـ is a correct entry. It is written this way in Arabic (with taṭwīl and without any dot, not the isolated form) in running text, and such may appear in other cases too, shewing that the taṭwīl should be one of those standard characters too. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 11:46, 19 October 2017 (UTC)


 * … Why do you have deleted هـ, ? I said “it’s correct” 😦 Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 09:18, 20 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Restored. Is it attestable in this form? --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 13:20, 20 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, I have seen it in the first printed book I have opened after seeing the entry, checking it, or look at this article about Muhammad and search هـ in Ctrl+F or this category. It is prominent, existing no doubt, and it would be awkward to cite sentences containing it in the article; better would be a photo of a book page with هـ years to show the reader how it appears (but I have not added any pictures to Wiktionary so far). Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 13:43, 20 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Note also ٫ U+066B ARABIC DECIMAL SEPARATOR and ٬ U+066C ARABIC THOUSANDS SEPARATOR as standard punctuation signs, if we already include the Arabic digits. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 11:51, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Done. That and taṭwīl. — Eru·tuon 01:49, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

幫倒忙
Surely this is 幫 + 倒 + 忙? 倒忙 is not a word AFAIK. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 14:27, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
 * You are right. I've removed, thanks. Wyang (talk) 21:03, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

terminology question
Hi Frank. I was wondering if you could help me with a couple of technical linguistics terms - homograph, homonym and false friend. What are their respective translations into Chinese? I've seen several versions for all three and am a bit confused what the correct terms are. Thanks. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 05:14, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi, I would translate them as: 同形异义词, 同音同形异义词 and 伪友, but I think it would be best to explain what they mean when these terms are used for the first time. (P.S. Google Translate gives 狐朋狗友 for 'false friend', lol.) Wyang (talk) 05:24, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
 * ^_^ Thanks for that. I'm teaching a class on translation theory at the moment, and some of the students are translating 'false friend' as 同形异义词 which I thought might not be completely accurate. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 05:43, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Nice. Yeah, 同形异义词 would be ambiguous, depending on whether it's within a language (homograph) or between languages (false friend). Wyang (talk) 05:50, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

zh-new is broken
See 外胚層, 中胚層 and 內胚層‎--2001:DA8:201:3512:9C81:5A40:EA4D:144F 11:16, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it was me, sorry. I was messing with it to add a new word list. You can use it now. Wyang (talk) 11:18, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * In 干欄 zh-new don't work even if the content is only . Probably this should be fixed.--2001:DA8:201:3512:6045:7225:907E:261C 11:04, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I've got rid of some of the old code that no longer applies to free up the memory. It should be working now. Hopefully there is no need to split the data modules in even smaller intervals. Wyang (talk) 11:21, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

蝴
Seems the definition of this character in zh-forms doesn't follow definition of Module:zh/data/glosses. I've purged many times... Do you have any idea why? Dokurrat (talk) 16:22, 25 October 2017 (UTC)


 * There is another line containing this character in the gloss module. You can locate all occurrences with Ctrl+F or Command+F (on Mac). Btw, I think it may be okay to leave the gloss for 蝴 as "butterfly". This is the sense people associate the character with anyway, although it cannot be used on its own. Wyang (talk) 21:56, 25 October 2017 (UTC)


 * LOL 😂 I never thought 'bout such situation. Okay, thanks! And, I still think it would be better to blank the definiton of 蝴. Dokurrat (talk) 22:51, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I think the better definition of 蝴 should be "(prefix)".--2001:DA8:201:3512:159:EE27:D524:4FEA 02:50, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * It's not quite a prefix, since it's not an actual morpheme, but a result of disyllabification. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 04:24, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

懺
If you are willing to, could you please add the etymological infomation to this article? I have no knowledge of Sanskit and I dont wanna screw it up. Dokurrat (talk) 14:32, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * No problem, I've added the etym. Wyang (talk) 14:50, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh thank you! Dokurrat (talk) 14:52, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

靜悄悄
The gloss of the second part is displayed as "quietly; :. |A small group of people stand about by the gate, talking quietly.}}"--2001:DA8:201:3512:A4AF:DFF2:F273:20AE 08:35, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Wyang (talk) 08:40, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

轟趴
This borrowing looks phonosemantic to me. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 16:57, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure... "explosion" + "lie on one's front/party" is probably more meaningful/appropriate than some of the other possible character choices... Wyang (talk) 02:02, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 14:26, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

穎 vs 顈 (jiǒng)
My mistake, bad eyes. Thanks for catching it. --Vihelik (talk) 13:49, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
 * No worries! Wyang (talk) 09:30, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

掩𠆲
Hi. For a multi-character Chinese entry, when should it deserve an  and   entry in ? This term specifically is mentioned in Guangyun and both characters have sole readings in Guangyun's system, so a simple concatenation might suffice, but 掩 also has a few other readings in other rime books (one of which even affects Mandarin by translating to yàn). --Dine2016 (talk) 06:18, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It's ok to add |mc=y there, since the term is attested in Guangyun. Generally, any term attested in Middle Chinese (since Sui-Tang to Song) can have |mc=y, and any attested in Old Chinese (Zhou to Han) can have |oc=y. With this word, I suspect it actually represents a 連綿詞 of the form . Wyang (talk) 10:36, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Category:Han characters needing common meanings
Can we use a bot for clearing this category?--2001:DA8:201:3512:BCE6:D095:55F1:36DE 12:51, 4 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Definitely possible. However I changed my computer and can't run automatic tasks that involve multi-line changes any more (including this), so I've been putting off a lot of cleanup tasks I wish to do. Wyang (talk) 12:56, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

EWDC
Hi! Here are your 10 random missing English words for this month. Let me know if you'd prefer a secret alert by e-mail next time. Equinox ◑ 00:53, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * phenogam, frogeyed, eilding, synd, signeting, seraphins, hassel, atrophias, prysed, breares


 * Geez, is it even English 😅... Wyang (talk) 01:04, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

建築房屋互助協會
Hi Frank, is there any way to fix the bug which displays "Qinghai}}" in the hanzi box? ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 02:42, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Of course, it's fixed now. Wyang (talk) 02:57, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 02:59, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

普羅大眾
The gloss of first term is displayed as "proletariat}}; {{zh-altterm|氆氌|Tibetan woollen cloth".--2001:DA8:201:3512:BCE6:D095:55F1:36DE 17:09, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, it's been fixed. Wyang (talk) 03:01, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/套
I created this but it does not work correctly.--2001:DA8:201:3512:BCE6:D095:55F1:36DE 18:01, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Fixed now. Wyang (talk) 03:35, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Any idea why MOD:zh/data/ltc-pron/𡘷 also has 透豪一開 去叨号? — justin(r)leung { (t...) 05:21, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Not sure, a Jiyun reading mixed into Ytenx by accident, I guess. Wyang (talk) 07:55, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It's not in ytenx (anymore). — justin(r)leung { (t...) 07:57, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I noticed too. Looks like they've removed the error. Wyang (talk) 08:05, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

recent contributions by 2001:da8:201:3512:61dd:8bf4:f8ee:7d
Hi Frank. Could I draw your attention to recent contributions by 2001:da8:201:3512:61dd:8bf4:f8ee:7d at 步驟, 希望, 謠言, 支吾, 作家, et al.? Do you think these are legitimate? ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 05:07, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * They are legitimate. This is a long-time IP contributor for Chinese, geolocated to Peking University (?), who has been adding thousands of entries and making many interesting and useful edits over the last several months. The range of their sources is amazingly wide, and in this case the senses can be verified in 漢語大詞典, e.g. for 步驟. The downside is that they very rarely tag these added literary Chinese senses appropriately, despite many reminders, which can make the current content on 步驟 extremely confusing for learners of Chinese that stumble upon that page. Wyang (talk) 08:21, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. Actually it would be confusing for native speakers of Chinese too - many of these are highly literary or archaic usages, and should be tagged and ordered appropriately. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 08:54, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Umm..., how do I determine if a 文言 term is literary, archaic, or obsolete? Can Xiandai Hanyu Cidian help? --Dine2016 (talk) 03:57, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, Xianhan has 〈书〉 for literary terms, and Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian has 〈文〉. As a general rule, 'literary' should be the primary label applicable to most terms (i.e. if it is used in Classical Chinese), and an additional (1) 'obsolete' or (2) 'archaic' can be added if it is (1) unlikely or (2) likely to be understood nowadays, although I generally just use 'literary' for words like 丽日, 不乐, 不羁, and 'obsolete' for 阿驿, 妃呼豨 and 兜羅. At any rate, any of these will be much better than none. Wyang (talk) 06:22, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

茶
I created Module:zh/data/dial-syn/茶 but it does not display correctly.--2001:DA8:201:3512:BCE6:D095:55F1:36DE 14:23, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * needs to be placed on a new line since it is a table. Btw, the semantics of this equivalence set needs to be further specified. Is it plant, leaves, drink, or ...? Wyang (talk) 14:29, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Just for future reference, I don't think a zh-dial data page should be made unless there's dialectal difference in modern dialects. It should just be used for showing Classical Chinese. In this case, there is some dialectal difference, so it's ok. The dialectal table has definitions for the drink, but I'm not sure about the Classical Chinese words. They seem to be different names for tea based on the time of picking. 郭璞's commentary notes: 早采曰茶，次曰檟，又其次曰蔎，晚曰茗，至荈則老葉矣. 蓋以早為貴也. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 01:46, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Classical Chinese zh-x in 角馬
The template ought to be updated to include the  in whatever part of it module is responsible for Classical Chinese. That's one thing I understand about the entry 角馬 needing a clean-up. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 06:58, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * You can do it on Module:zh-usex. Wyang (talk) 07:19, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅; now, about the usage example itself... --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 09:38, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

澩
Hi Wyang, I just wanted to check on the first definition given for 澩, which is "山上夏天有水，冬天沒有水的地方". Literally, it seems to say something about snow being on a mountain in the summertime while there is no snow in the wintertime. The phrase seems contradictory to what one expects in those situations, so I was wondering if it was a proverb of some sort. Cheers! Bumm13 (talk) 11:59, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello! You got it mostly correct. It is "place on a mountain where there is water in summer, but no water in winter" (not snow). It's not a proverb. Wyang (talk) 07:24, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Deleting maintenance categories is a stupid idea
The goal of someone maintaining a maintenance category is to empty it. A well-maintained category is empty more often than it is populated. Stop. DCDuring (talk) 21:10, 13 November 2017 (UTC)+
 * Stop? That was 2 days ago. Is that last word really necessary?
 * Maintenance categories should be deleted if empty and bot-created if populated. There is no point for anyone to land onto an empty category. It is a waste of editors' time and the time of visitors who arrived there from Google search.
 * Try Googling Japanese pronunciation category and see how much accidental junk on Wiktionary the clueless searcher bumps into. It is credibility-destroying. Precisely the reason I have been deleting hundreds of meaningless talkpages recently and why the speedy delete criterion says "empty category", not "empty non-maintenance category". Wyang (talk) 23:56, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Not all maintenance categories are there for searchers. Some are there because they're a necessary part of the site infrastructure- things like CAT:E and Category:ParserFunction errors. If you delete them, they drop out of the category hierarchy so no one can find them. They also become unhidden. Besides, the bot that creates the categories doesn't run 24/7, so there's always a lag between when a category fills up and when the bot gets to it. That means urgent problems can be unattended for days. I should add that some don't use the standard templates, so the bot doesn't touch them. Indiscriminate deletion of all empty maintenance categories is like getting rid of the spare tire because you've never used it, or shutting off emergency phone numbers because it's been quiet for the last few days. Chuck Entz (talk) 10:13, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Fine, whatever, I will revert all of the deletions. I won't touch it anymore. Very pissed that communication has to be initiated in such an uncomfortably hostile manner. All the junk can remain. Wyang (talk) 10:20, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry if the tone of my post made it seem like I was agreeing with the tone of the original one, the header of which makes me cringe a bit. There are, indeed, many eminently deletable maintenance categories- it's just that there are also some critical ones that should be left alone. Rua has used a script in the past to delete empty topical categories, and the lexical ones are fair game, too. I think the main distinction is between informing and flagging for attention, but also how quickly something needs to dealt with: an error or a mess is quite different from requests for quotes, pronunciations or etymologies. I should mention that I used to spend a lot of my time creating categories back in the days before it could be automated, so the deletion log entries from your restoring of all those empty categories just nuked my watchlist... Chuck Entz (talk) 15:07, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * “I think the main distinction is between informing and flagging for attention” I agree, that seems to be the principal difference between categories to be deleted and not to be deleted. I have thought today about the distinction after seeing the flooded recent changes list without conclusion but that seems to be it. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 15:36, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello,
 * I have seen the deletion / restoration of the categories, but:
 * the deletion has automatically removed in Wikidata the sitelink towards the deleted category, for categories with an associated Wikidata item (example with 46 sitelinks)
 * the restoration did not recreate the sitelink between the Wikidata item and the restored category → the category has lost its interlanguage and interproject links: it becomes isolated here
 * do you plan to cancel your edits in Wikidata, to recreate the sitelinks?
 * Moreover, I have seen the case of Category:Hawaii with 120 sitelinks in Wikidata. In this case, undoing your edit in Wikidata will not improve the situation. You removed Category:Hawaii on November 12 (and restored it today). It is a redirect towards Category:Hawaii, USA, due to a move done by MewBot on November 10. I don't understand why the move on November 10 was not automatically applied into Wikidata. Perhaps it was not applied because the account MewBot has never logged into Wikidata. The consequence is that each move (followed by a deletion here) will lead the category with the new name (Category:Hawaii, USA) to become isolated here, without its interlanguage and interproject links. is it normal that the moves done by your bot here are not automatically applied into Wikidata?
 * Moreover, I don't understand why our maintenance categories do not use a template similar to w:Template:Possibly empty category. For instance, I regularly empty Category:Language code missing/seemoreCites which is filled automatically by Template:seemoreCites when contributors incorrectly use the template.
 * Regards --NicoScribe (talk) 20:51, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think any of the categories I deleted should exist as they are all empty categories, so I'm probably the wrong person to ask about this. It's a mess of things currently, and people get annoyed when this mess is touched, so I'd rather let it stay the way it is. Wyang (talk) 02:51, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Some categories were useless after a move by MewBot (Category:Hawaii) and the Wikidata item must be corrected to restore the interlanguage and interproject links for the new name (Category:Hawaii, USA): I can try to correct these cases, by checking your deletions on Wikidata (but a problem will still exist as long as the moves done by Rua's bot here are not automatically applied into Wikidata). And some categories, like the template tracking categories regularly filled by templates, were not useless (Category:Language code missing/seemoreCites), in particular when they had interlanguage and interproject links.
 * The remarks by DCDuring, by Chuck Entz, by Palaestrator verborum and by myself prove that the situation is not simple, and that some underlying problems are not resolved. In the meantime, do you mind whether I apply the rollback function on your Wikidata edits, to restore the sitelinks (even if you might receive many notifications for my reverts)? This is just the continuity of your restoration here. --NicoScribe (talk) 07:36, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure. Wyang (talk) 07:39, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I hope that you have tweaked your Wikidata preferences to avoid receiving the revert notifications. I will leave a message here after the Wikidata reverts. --NicoScribe (talk) 07:53, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I have turned it off. You can start the reverts now. Wyang (talk) 07:56, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The Wikidata reverts are finished. --NicoScribe (talk) 11:07, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Wyang (talk) 11:09, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

달팽이
Do you happen to know why the romaja and translation is in bold? —suzukaze (t・c) 06:01, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, I do know.... Thanks for catching it. Wyang (talk) 07:22, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

䭆
The character 䭆 (from Ext. A) has two strange definitions given in the Unihan database: "small children eat less" and "tired of eating". But the Kangxi dictionary gives something along the line of "something lazy children say (or said about them)". Any help clarifying this issue would be greatly appreciated! Bumm13 (talk) 11:32, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello, this character has three senses: (1) to eat very little; to be sluggish at feeding; (2) to have a reduced appetite; to eat little; (3) a kind of Chinese bread, similar to . Kangxi has 楚謂小兒嬾曰䭆, which means "The Chu dialect says a little child being sluggish at eating is 䭆" (thus definition #1). Wyang (talk) 02:57, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

䭀
The Unihan database gives "food (of the Taoist)" as the definition for 䭀 (in Ext. A) but that is clearly not a complete definition. The Kangxi dictionary talks about black rice but also goes on to talk about some sort of Taoist food laws or something of that sort. This is probably too advanced for me, so any help you could provide on this one would be greatly appreaciated. Cheers! Bumm13 (talk) 12:26, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It's used in the word 青䭀飯 (or occasionally alone) to refer to this (the black one). It's black rice, made by soaking rice in the extract of the oriental blueberry, used as a food offering, originally by Taoists, then by Buddhists as well, and now still by people in the Jiangnan region during the . Wyang (talk) 06:27, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

柵
I added five pronunciations to this character but only four are displayed.--2001:DA8:201:3512:BCE6:D095:55F1:36DE 13:06, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Wyang (talk) 13:28, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Translingual definition
Should we have a bot to move all translingual definitions to Chinese section? as they may be incorrect, they can be tagged as check needed.--2001:DA8:201:3512:BCE6:D095:55F1:36DE 16:57, 17 November 2017 (UTC)


 * My two cents: If someone moves it manually, that in itself [should theoretically be] a form of check. —suzukaze (t・c) 17:07, 17 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree. Wyang (talk) 02:03, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/羡
What does the ？ in second pronunciation means? P.S. I have merged two lines to Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/羨.--2001:DA8:201:3512:BCE6:D095:55F1:36DE 17:12, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I don't know what it means either. Removed it on the two pages. Wyang (talk) 02:13, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Excuse me
Page 梅 is enlisted in Category:English terms derived from Middle Chinese and Category:English terms derived from Old Chinese, which is obviously wrong. But I just cannot successfully troubleshoot it. If you are willing to, would you like to help? Dokurrat (talk) 18:49, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It comes from the Japanese section using . It should be fixed now — justin(r)leung { (t...) 18:53, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is fixed. Thank you! Dokurrat (talk) 18:54, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Origins of 精子
Curious if you know anything about the origins of this term. I just expanded the JA entry, and was stuck leaving the etym a bit vague as I couldn't find much definitive. Did this term exist in earlier Chinese? Or was this perhaps a Japanese coinage during the 1800s or so during the course of Japanese scholars voraciously reading and translating European works? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 23:27, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The sense of "semen" does seem to be relatively late. I could not find it in pre-Qing texts, but I could find an attestation in late Qing 清稗類鈔. Didn't have much luck finding sources on whether this is wasei kango though, unfortunately. Wyang (talk) 02:35, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

dry pot
When you get time could you have a look at my definition here? It needs tweaking. Cheers. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 02:49, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure, I tweaked the definition a little and added the poker sense. Wyang (talk) 03:20, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Perfect, thanks! ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 03:22, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Etymology for 荔枝
Hi Frank, when you have time, could you take a look at the etymology for 荔枝? I find Wei (2000)'s argument unconvincing because (1) I can't find any Zhuang dialect that has maːk7 ɕai1 or lɯk8 ɕai1 and (2) the Zhuang forms look like borrowings from Chinese (e.g. Wuming lai4 ɕai1, Pingguo maːk9 lai6, Du'an lɯk8 lai6, Shangsi maːk7 li4 tsi1). This has a good discussion. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 03:29, 20 November 2017 (UTC)


 * An article on this topic was recently published: “荔枝”源于侗台语考 (2017, 福利), which investigated the relationship between 荔枝/離支/離枝 and the names in Tai-Kadai languages and provided an excellent overview of the attestations and theories to date. The conclusion ― which I agree with ― was that 荔枝 was almost certainly borrowed from a Tai-Kadai language during the Late Old Chinese period; the identity of the source word is obscure, but multiple lines of evidence make this a much more likely scenario than the other etymology theories. Wyang (talk) 04:35, 20 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for finding this article! I've expanded the etymology based on it. Please feel free to add to it. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 06:57, 20 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Great work, well done! Wyang (talk) 07:23, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

踭
I noticed that you changed this character’s assigned meaning to ankle rather than heel. It just seemed weird to me since this character is used in. The character is glossed as “heel” and “elbow” in the Unihan database, along with the identically pronounced. Does it really mean “ankle” and not “heel”? – Krun (talk) 14:13, 20 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Bit surprised to know this... and my worst fear came true. It was indeed me who changed it. Can't remember why I did that; must have had a brain fart at the time. I will change it back. Wyang (talk) 14:18, 20 November 2017 (UTC)


 * OK, good to know. No worries, it happens. Thanks for the quick response. :) – Krun (talk) 14:23, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Korean etyma for 寺
Curious if you have any insights concerning the derivation of the tera reading in Japanese. I've listed what I can find in my JA sources to hand. :) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 21:01, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The first and second theories can be merged - this should be from the same origin as modern <  (1481 ) <  (1446 ), a nativised reading of Sino-Korean, which is now only used in compounds, such as  and . Wyang (talk) 21:12, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I'll rework accordingly.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 21:44, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Additional query -- did the sense for 刹 as a single character arise within Chinese, and then get borrowed into Korean?  Or was the Korean use of this character purely phonetic to spell out a term unrelated to the Chinese?  If the KO borrowing was semantic, then the  sense would appear to derive from 🇨🇬 from 🇨🇬, and 🇨🇬 doesn't enter into the ZH or KO terms at all -- perhaps suggesting that any JA connection to the Pali could be a folk etymology.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 22:17, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * That's correct ― the Korean borrowing was semantic. The borrowing history is probably:
 * > corrupted (→ 🇨🇬 ) >  >.
 * Wyang (talk) 22:34, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * > corrupted (→ 🇨🇬 ) >  >.
 * Wyang (talk) 22:34, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Wyang (talk) 22:34, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

auto-create of pinyin entries
Hi Frank. Got a technical question. I used to be able to automatically generate pinyin entries when I clicked on the green pinyin links. Now it seems it's not working. Any idea how to fix this? Thanks. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 01:37, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing this is 's bailiwick. Incidentally, couldn't pinyin entries be bot-created en masse? —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 01:42, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, there haven't been recent changes in Module:cmn-pron that can affect the functionality, AFAICS. Looks like this is related to the edits to the accelerated creation script, discussed at Beer_parlour/2017/November. Wyang (talk) 03:46, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Any idea how I can get this function back? I create the entries to cross reference the pinyin with other dictionaries to make sure we aren't missing common words. Yes, we could create them en masse, but there would always need to be a human to double check them, as no database or dictionary is all-inclusive, new words are created all the time, and old ones are often missing. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 09:34, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not really familiar with how this function works, unfortunately. I think the best way would be to let Rua know in the Beer parlour thread. Wyang (talk) 09:41, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * What is actually the problem? I don't have much to go on right now. —Rua (mew) 11:33, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I was listening to the conversation and tried to replicate the error. If you click a pinyin green link, like in, the editbox is blank. I'm seeing a JavaScript error in the console: ReferenceError: PreloadTextError is not defined . — Eru·tuon 20:09, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I see it now. The link is missing a language. —Rua (mew) 20:10, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, that particular link is created in Module:cmn-pron. I add the language attribute, but it still doesn't work. Maybe it should use Module:script utilities. — Eru·tuon 21:24, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Adding the language attribute doesn't fix fixes it. (Edit: I was dumb enough not to do a null edit.) Can you fix the PreloadTextError issue, though? — Eru·tuon 21:27, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Question: should the language header for auto-generated pinyin entries be Chinese (as it is) or Mandarin? — Eru·tuon 21:55, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

JA 光 (hikari) and KO 빛 (bit)?
An anon added as a possible cognate to  in.

The JA term's provenance might be as a compound of +. However, there's also the presence of adverbs and, suggesting a root form of *pika, extending the analogy of similar adverbs with reduplicated forms and single forms + り, such as , ; , , , possibly ultimately from ; , , ; , , , , ultimately from. I can't find any instances where this kind of adverb derives from a 四段 verb ending in る (i.e. where the /ru/ changes to /ra/, /ri/, etc. instead of just dropping out as it does in verbs like ).

If the JA term hikari ultimately derives from a pika root (and not pikar-), is there any chance that this might be cognate with KO ? While KO final and JA final shi / chi / su / tsu do seem to line up quite well in readings for borrowed ZH terms, I'm not aware of coda syllable correlation between KO  and JA k- or ka... ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 01:54, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * , update on the origin of hikaru: Nihon Dai Jisho (page 621) says it's derived from +, but this kaka looks related to . Also, Kanji Jiten gives me ひかある on  the ancient forms 灮 and 炗. Any thoughts? --POKéTalker (talk) 05:01, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * @POKéTalker -- KANJIDIC is sadly not very reliable, so I must often take their content with a grain of salt, as it were. I see that Jim Breen's listings don't show the long : 灮 and 炗.  The hikaaru reading is interesting, as it might suggest ancient pika + aru -- however, the ancient copula verb had a terminal conjugation of ari, not aru -- aru was the attributive instead, so we'd expect to see pika + ari → hikari as a verb, not a noun.


 * The kaka root is clearly the same as from kagayaku, you're right about that: Shogakukan's 国語大辞典 lists kakayaku as an ancient reading for modern kagayaku, and the notes for kagayou also state 「かが」は「かがち」「かぐつち」などの「かが」「かぐ」と同根で、光輝を意味するという.  I'm unclear on how the Nihon Dai Jisho folks expect pi + kaka to become pikaru.  None of the other developments of the kaka root drop one of the ka portions, making this *pikaka → pikaru derivation appear a bit unlikely.  I suppose it's possible that this kaka is itself a reduplication of another root ka related somehow to light, given that all the kaka-related terms have to do with this theme.  Following the link and jumping to the right page, I see that the Nihon Dai Jisho entry explains 〔ひ（日）かか（赫）ノ義〕, describing the meaning (義) but not necessarily the derivation.  Interesting lead, though.  :)  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 18:55, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Interesting. Korean has a similar word . It seems every person who has commented on this topic in the literature had a slightly different opinion on this:
 * {| class="wikitable"

!Whitman (1985)
 * In his dissertation listing the Korean and Japanese comparanda:

On MK pyèth ‘sunshine, sun’, pích ‘light’ ~ OJ pî, pîru ‘sun, daytime’: “The variety of vowels in the Middle Korean forms indicates different suffixes” (pp. 212). !Martin (1996) ! (1997) ! (2000)
 * K. pich ‘light, brilliance; color’ (? < *picuk, *picok)
 * Not found.
 * is derived from the root, cognate with.

On, he wrote: proto-form , related to 🇨🇬 , , 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬 / , 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬 /. ! width="10%"|Starostin (2003)
 * cannot be found.

is derived from Proto-Altaic *p`i̯ŏt`e ( ~ -t-, *p`i̯ăt`u) (“light”), with no Japanese reflex.

is from Proto-Altaic *p`i̯àlk`i (“lightning, thunder”), whence also 🇨🇬. ! Robbeets (2005) (link) ! (2010) ! Vovin (2010)
 * J. ‘firefly, glowfly’: related to MK pjə̀t, pK pjə̀t ‘light’ [sic?],  whereas the J. word is compared with 🇨🇬 in Starostin (2003).
 * is related to . Both can be compared with the Dravidian words for “light”...
 * On Whitman (1985)'s K.-J. comparison:

Unfortunately, we do not have any internal Korean evidence that would allow us to reconstruct any different suffixes here, let alone to demonstrate cogently that these two forms are related within Korean itself: I am not aware of the suffixes *-eth and *-ch in any variety of Korean. For all practical purposes, both Middle Korean words represent roots; we do not have any means to analyze them further. Therefore, neither of them is compatible with OJ pî, pîru ‘sun, daytime’. In addition, MK pyèth means ‘the sun’ only as heat, not as the object in the sky, because the primary meaning of the word is ‘sunshine, sunrays’. Thus I reject this etymology on the basis of the unaccounted segments in Korean and the problematic semantics. !Francis-Ratte (2016) (link) !???
 * LIGHT (pp. 307): MK pich ‘light,’ pyeth ‘sunshine,’ pye:l ‘star’ ~ OJ pi ‘day, sun’. pKJ *pi ‘light’. (Whitman 1985: #32). MK pyel ‘star’ is probably not cognate with OJ posi ‘star’. Instead, I believe MK pyel comes from pre-MK *pi-el ‘light-spirit’ with el ‘spirit’; the etymology points to *pi ‘light’. MK -eth is not a productive suffix, but a viable explanation of the form is that -eth represents a nominalization of MK e:t- ‘gets,’ where MK pyeth < *pi ‘light’ + *et- ‘gets’ + *k ‘locative’. Compare the parallel derivation of Japanese hi-atari ‘sunshine’ from hi ‘sun’ + atar-i ‘receiving’. These forms alone point to pK *pi ‘light’; MK pich is certainly related, but I am inclined to think that the nominal pich may be immediately derived from the MK verb pichwúy- ‘shines,’ which itself is a lexicalization of *pi + a verb such as chwu- ‘raises’. pKJ *pi ‘light’.
 * }
 * Wyang (talk) 05:55, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Wyang (talk) 05:55, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Very interesting indeed, thank you! Vovin is certainly one of the more conservative writers in this space.  And it's fascinating how Dravidian has such a strong pull.  I'll have to go over this table more closely when I have more time.  :)  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 18:55, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Common.css
css

I'm not sure that this does what you want it to do: —suzukaze (t・c) 05:34, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Probably... the fallback sans-serif looked the best though, much better than the previous one at least. Might keep those there in case anyone wants to switch it again... Wyang (talk) 05:54, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * You might want to find out what font it is on your system so that you could add that as the first on the list. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 05:58, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * (chrome, firefox) —suzukaze (t・c) 06:25, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Yeah I used Chrome's developer tools and an extension called FontFace Ninja to see which font looked best when I changed it -- conclusion being sans-serif actually looked the most aesthetic out of all the ones there (if I did it correctly). The previous one, css, and the subsequent css, were too squarish and rounded at the edges for my liking. The current one is much more marked out. Wyang (talk) 06:40, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I hope you know "sans-serif" is not an actual font. I was trying to see if you could find out the actual font name. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 06:53, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I'm still not sure. Maybe it's Apple SD Gothic Neo. The screenshot is here. Wyang (talk) 07:06, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I think it is Apple SD Gothic Neo. Using Chrome's developer tools reveals that Apple SD Gothic Neo generates the same effect. I will change it in MediaWiki:Common.css accordingly. It doesn't help with the Windows users though ― someone needs to test the fonts and see whether the sequence is ideal. Wyang (talk) 07:11, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I apologise for the confusion. I don't have a computing background ― My knowledge with CSS and fonts (and computers in general) is very little, and any knowledge has been prompted by need. 見笑了，請多包涵. Wyang (talk) 07:25, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * No worries! — justin(r)leung { (t...) 07:28, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * It's totally fine. Stuff like this can get weird.
 * For Windows, I personally rate them Malgun Gothic > Dotum > Gulim >>>>>>>>> Arial Unicode MS (not sure why Korea likes the rounded style of Gulim). Malgun Gothic should be higher because it can support obsolete hangul characters. —suzukaze (t・c) 07:54, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Alright, thanks! I adjusted it per the above sequence. Let me know if there are more tweaks needed for the fonts. Wyang (talk) 09:07, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Just noticed that Code2000 is in there too. It's impressive but unacceptably ugly and I think it should be removed altogether. —suzukaze (t・c) 09:10, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * OK, I removed it from Kore. (not for the other 35 occurrences right? :)) Wyang (talk) 09:15, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Personally I'd be fine with it being removed where possible but I don't think I should tamper with the font stacks of languages I don't deal with. —suzukaze (t・c) 09:19, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

一啖荔枝三把火
The gloss for 荔枝 is messed up. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 07:15, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure how this should be handled, because in a way the gloss extraction is ad hoc, relying on the same, numbered formatting for definitions. Changing the numbered list to unnumbered is probably what we should do for now. Wyang (talk) 07:29, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Alright, thanks! — justin(r)leung { (t...) 07:31, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

低碳哥
Sorry but the concept does exist: Adbar (talk) 11:49, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The word was 地摊 哥. Wyang (talk) 12:07, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh, I typed too fast, well done, sorry for that. Adbar (talk) 12:14, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * No worries! Wyang (talk) 12:17, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

天狗
There's a circular reference here -- the JA entry derives this from ZH, but then lists ZH as a descendant. ??? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 17:52, 22 November 2017 (UTC)


 * The Chinese sense of “tengu” is not necessarily “derived” from Japanese ― it's just conveniently applying the already existing word for “sky dog” for the related concept in Japan. There is nothing in the phonetics that suggests a Japanese source, unlike 🇨🇬.
 * P.S. May I shamelessly request your attention to the entry when you have a bit of time? It could definitely do with some cleanup. Wyang (talk) 20:22, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Done. :)  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 23:40, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Wyang (talk) 08:09, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

zh-l
If I type, it will generate 爊/熬, which doesn't match the dealing in dictionaries (爊 has a standalone entry in 现代汉语词典 and 现代汉语规范词典). How to fix this? Dokurrat (talk) 08:19, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * You can remove it from Module:zh/data/ts ― that should fix this problem. Wyang (talk) 08:21, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Dokurrat (talk) 08:25, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

bóng nước
Please check this term - Japanese Wiktionary have list first two senses in different etymologies.--2001:DA8:201:3512:4503:8F3E:74EC:C251 13:11, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Done. If I may, please ― do not edit in languages you do not know, and use the correct templates in your entries. Wyang (talk) 13:18, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Oddity with LTC pron lookups?
I was just editing 🇨🇬, and added to get the first LTC reading  for, and the second LTC reading  for. However:



... shows the second LTC reading instead of the expected first reading. If I change the first  value to   instead, it gives me the first reading instead of the second:



(I tried to  the  calls above so these won't change on this page even if the template changes -- but apparently the behavior of the   prefix is incompatible with templates that call modules.)

Any ideas what's going on?

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 21:31, 28 November 2017 (UTC)


 * The lua refers to the position of the reading in the backend module: Module:zh/data/ltc-pron/炮. :) If you edit Pronunciation 1 on 炮, you will see that the Middle Chinese data is called as, thus the same reading as  → . Wyang (talk) 21:58, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Aha, thank you! Wasn't sure where the data lived, and wrongly assumed it was pulling from the entries themselves → and thus my confusion when   pulls the reading for the first reading on the page.  多謝！  I'll complete my edits at 🇨🇬.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 22:03, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

EWDC #2
Hi! Here are your 10 random missing English words for this month. Equinox ◑ 19:39, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
 * trapnests, sepiost, cowflaps, runflat, living flame, phosphores, eassel, midshore, pardalis, sunket

Category:Tbot entries (Vietnamese)
Hey. Can you try to clean up these dozen entries? --Lirafafrod (talk) 14:15, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Wyang is certainly very knowledgable and has access to good reference materials, but is a native speaker- have you asked them? Chuck Entz (talk) 02:44, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's necessary. Wyang has been on a Vietnamese push lately (for obvious reasons), and now the category is almost cleaned out. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 03:04, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I cleaned up a couple of the Tbot entries, and now Fumiko has kindly nominated the remaining entry for RFV, so the category should be empty soon. Wyang (talk) 14:44, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

真是的
The first gloss are displayed as "; honestly!".--2001:DA8:201:3512:BCE6:D095:55F1:36DE 16:50, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ Wyang (talk) 14:42, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

LTC pronunciations
I got a bee in my bonnet about looking again at the 甲乙 / Type-A vs. Type-B / subscript-1 vs. subscript-2 distinction that appears in OJP, and vanishes later. I was looking at the LTC readings of the characters used as man'yōgana, and things line up pretty well mostly, suggesting that 甲 vowels were more fronted or palatalized, and 乙 vowels further back or labialized.

However, I ran across this line over at Old Japanese:

There is no consensus on the pronunciation of the syllables distinguished by man'yōgana. One difficulty is that the pronunciations of the characters used are also disputed, and since their reconstruction is partly based on Sino-Japanese pronunciations, there is a danger of circular reasoning.

This is the first I've heard of this, about LTC reconstructions relying on Japanese. The source for that was given as a 2003 book by Marc Hideo Miyake, Old Japanese: A Phonetic Reconstruction (ISBN 0-415-30575-6), which confuses me -- would an English-language author writing on Japanese have up-to-date knowledge about LTC reconstructions? I am uncertain.

Do you have any insight? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 21:42, 8 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I had a read of Miyake's discussion on the reconstruction circularity (pp. 54 in his book). It is actually a secondary quote of Pulleyblank (1984):

 Unfortunately, Tôdô’s work was marred by circularity: his MC reconstruction was partly based on his OJ reconstruction and vice versa. Miller (1967: 179) writes of Tôdô’s (1957) attempt at OJ reconstruction:


 * Assuming the “fact” that Old Japanese had an eight-vowel system and the “fact” that these eight vowels of Old Japanese are sufficiently well known to be described in terms of acoustic phonetics, he then takes these as his point of departure, following the phonetic values now commonly held by most modern Japanese scholars for the eight vowels. With this data he enters the Chinese rhyme-tables; and when he again emerges many pages later he is able to say, in effect, that the Middle Chinese materials show that these vowels not only existed in Japanese but were of the following phonetic shapes, etc., etc. – which unfortunately is the point from which his discussion originally began.

Decades later, Pulleyblank (1984: 156) pointed out that “pointed out that “Since the reconstructed Chinese sounds are in turn the principal source available for reconstructing the older stages of Japanese, there is great danger of circularity on both sides of the argument.” Yet Pulleyblank himself fell into that very trap by reconstructing MC partly on the basis of his OJ reconstruction and vice versa.


 * As you can see, the citation on Wikipedia is a misconstrument of Miyake's original text.
 * Firstly, the Middle Chinese pronunciations of characters in different reconstructions vary, but not to the extent of disputed. Here is a comparison of the finals in various Middle Chinese reconstructions. A similar comparison exists on Wikipedia. In any case, the actual phonetic differences between different authors are small.
 * Secondly, Miyake and Pulleyblank commented on the danger of circular reasoning when OJ is reconstructed from a system of MC partly based on the OJ data. Amongst the reconstructions, Karlgren (高本漢)'s reconstruction of MC was the oldest modern phonetic reconstruction, and he drew his data from dialects throughout China and the Sinoxenic pronunciations in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. Most of the subsequent reconstructions have inherited his system with minimal changes, with the exception of Pulleyblank (蒲立本)'s, which also referenced his OJ reconstructions (hence the cricitism by Miyake) and was relatively divergent from the rest. Hence most of the MC reconstructions do make use of SJ data, but not OJ data. The fact that the reconstruction of MC used in OJ reconstructions makes use of SJ data ― which is an unambiguous set of descendant pronunciations ― is tortuous and non-ideal, but not circular.
 * Wyang (talk) 09:40, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

徵
The simplified forms are wrong. How to fix it?--2001:DA8:201:3512:BCE6:D095:55F1:36DE 13:06, 9 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Please see my edit. Wyang (talk) 13:12, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

巧合
Hi Frank. Could you help me have a look at the categories section here? I'm seeing some weird red links, don't know if anyone else is. I can see: Chinese vhttps://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=巧合&action=edit&section=1vhttps://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=巧合&action=edit&section=1. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 14:27, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, weird error. Seems to be from ; did you accidentally paste the url in the entry? 是巧合嗎？XD Wyang (talk) 14:38, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I guess so. Very strange. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 14:45, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

嗯哪
Would you like to fix the page? Dokurrat (talk) 17:52, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure, fixed. Wyang (talk) 14:21, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Just to report, that the Gwoyeu Romatzyh the template generated ("n1.nha") is not convincing... (Did Gwoyeu Romatzyh's design cover this situation?) Dokurrat (talk) 18:23, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
 * 我母鸡国语罗马字啊. . . 也许知.  Wyang (talk) 05:11, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

trad->simp conversion and pinyin for short form definitions
Hi Frank. Is there a way to add auto trad->simp conversion and pinyin for the definitions provided in short form entries like 北大, 北二外, etc.? Thanks. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 12:18, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello, you can use the template for these entries now. Please see the use on 北二外. Wyang (talk) 15:58, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
 * You can also use ^ to allow capitalization if the word is not already capitalized. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 16:30, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks guys. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 03:14, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Question
Hello. I suspect you've studied medicine and are a health practitioner. Am I right? --Rerum scriptor (talk) 00:16, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello. Wyang (talk) 03:37, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
 * :v --Rerum scriptor (talk) 11:22, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

券
Hi. Where did you got the sense "to bore; to drill"? Dokurrat (talk) 19:15, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi, please see . Wyang (talk) 02:18, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

IP anon removing ZH etyms
I'd appreciate help vetting the edits at Special:Contributions/2001:DA8:201:3512:B41C:62F8:B47:8C5D. This anon appears to be just removing ZH etymologies. Has there been a policy or practice change? Or should this anon's edits just be wholesale reverted as vandalism?

Pinging too. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 17:47, 20 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I think those edits should be fine. They've been a long time anon who makes good edits, although they should work on putting some edit summaries and formatting. They're mainly removing etymologies using, which is being phased out in favour of glosses in . — justin(r)leung { (t...) 18:10, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
 * @justin(r)leung -- Aha, thank you! I'd reverted a couple of their removals, as the lack of edit summary + removal of what appears to be valid content + anon looked an awful lot like vandalism.  I'll revert my revert, then.  :)  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 18:18, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

trẻ
汉越语研究 proposes a Chinese origin, from 稚. I don't know whether it's correct.--2001:DA8:201:3512:3CE0:3418:40C0:AA45 18:25, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * It seems unlikely, since Từ điển Việt–Bồ–La has tlẻ. Wyang (talk) 18:37, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, of bay, gừng and mù (the last is also proposed to be a loanword from Tai languages).--2001:DA8:201:3512:3CE0:3418:40C0:AA45 18:38, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * and chèo.--2001:DA8:201:3512:3CE0:3418:40C0:AA45 18:42, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Wang Li's etymologies in these cases look dubious, especially in light of the now updated reconstructions on Vietic and Mon–Khmer. Wyang (talk) 18:44, 22 December 2017 (UTC)