Wiktionary:Information desk/2017/January

Chinese words in French wiktionary
I downloaded a dump of the French Wiktionary, and was surprised to see a huge number of non-French words which (assuming I understand the structure) appear to be treated as lexemes. A majority of these are Chinese, in Chinese script. An example is '星期', which appears in https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%98%9F%E6%9C%9F. Based on the characters I would expect to see in French, I get about 3,076,557 lexemes (not counting inflected forms listed in the paradigms), and another 480,082 "lexemes" which contain unexpected characters. In addition to Chinese characters, there are Cyrillic, Tamil, Greek, Devanagari, etc. A few are understandable: the individual letters of the Greek alphabet, affixes (I hadn't allowed for hyphens, so affixes are showing up in my list of headwords with unexpected characters), etc.

Some other examples: французька (Ukrainian, https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%84%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%86%D1%83%D0%B7%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%B0), アラブ首長国連邦 (Japanese, https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%A9%E3%83%96%E9%A6%96%E9%95%B7%E5%9B%BD%E9%80%A3%E9%82%A6), δόντι (Greek, https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B4%CF%8C%CE%BD%CF%84%CE%B9), פרי (Hebrew, https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A4%D7%A8%D7%99), återgälda (Swedish, https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A5terg%C3%A4lda).

I could understand the occasional loanword with foreign language spelling, like 'fiancée' in English. But hundreds of thousands of foreign words in foreign scripts in the French wiktionary? Why? And at least as important, is there a better way to filter out foreign words from a wiktionary? I'm not talking about "real" loanwords like 'weekend' in French (and yes, I know that's a fuzzy boundary), I'm talking about words that (afaict) have no place in the dictionary of language X. The problem with my filtering method--looking for unexpected characters--is that it won't filter out foreign words that happen to use a subset of the French alphabet, like 'fish' (https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/fish).

BTW, I'm writing this note here because I'm a native speaker of English, and a very poor speaker of French. I suppose I could try to write the above in French, or google-translate it, but I'm not confident I'd be understood if I did that. So I'm hoping the answer is here.Mcswell (talk) 19:21, 10 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Every Wiktionary includes words in all languages. Equinox ◑ 19:24, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Each Wiktionary is intended to be a dictionary of all words in all languages; the nominal language of that Wiktionary (the "xx" in "xx.wiktionary.org") is the language in which definitions are written and in which discussion takes place. But French Wiktionary is as entitled to have Chinese and Russian words as English Wiktionary is (CAT:Chinese lemmas, CAT:Russian lemmas); likewise Chinese and Russian Wiktionaries are entitled to have French and Russian words, and so on. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:27, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * As for getting just the French words from French Wiktionary, you need the subcategories of fr:Catégorie:Grammaire en français. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:30, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Elmer (mentor)
I've recently started reading about amateur radio (ham radio), in which the word Elmer is used as a literal synonym for mentor. In recent days I seen uses such as "I was given this old aerial by a local elmer, but I don't know if it works with my rig" and "the guy who elmered me".

I wondered whether this is worthy of inclusion here, but I've never started an article on this site before, and I have no idea which of your discussion rooms is most appropriate for this. I'm sure I could find a few appropriate citations for use. Google books: noun, verb. --Strolls (talk) 02:24, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I have added a definition of the noun at . SemperBlotto (talk) 05:55, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

"news" and "News"
It doesn't seem like there should be two pages/entries for the word news/News. Instead, I would suggest replacing the current News page with news, and having news redirect to News.
 * The German noun is always capitalized, which is why it is at the title News. DTLHS (talk) 19:06, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Old Irish verbforms
So I found this Old Irish verb database which has a bit of verbforms, whereas our Old Irish conjugation tables are blank for no reason. I've decided to take up the task of filling in the tables here on WT. I've started with and a few others. Anti-Gamz Dust (There's Hillcrest!) 02:28, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

SineBot missed an unsigned addition to a discussion page
Here. Is it possible to summon it to have it do its thing there? --Dyspeptic skeptic (talk) 21:41, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * As far as I know that bot only operates on Wikipedia. DTLHS (talk) 21:44, 19 January 2017 (UTC)


 * We usually manually add the template or . --WikiTiki89 22:05, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Done. (By the way, Template:unsignedip is redirected to Template:unsigned.) --Dyspeptic skeptic (talk) 01:41, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Error on 'Translation requests (Polish)
I've been adding a few Polish translations to various terms, and I noticed that the word 'być' is listed on the page Category:Translation requests (Polish). The problem is that it is a Polish word, meaning 'to be' (it is a word in also Lower Sorbian, but the meaning is the same and there is no translation section there for that language anyway). I can't remove it just by going to the 'edit' page because the page seems to be automatically generated. Any help would be very much appreciated. N Oneemuss (talk) 14:40, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I believe the entry is placed in that category due to a quotation on the Polish entry być not having an English translation (the one under sense 4). You should be able to remove it from the category either by translating it or removing the quotation (I recommend the former). — Kleio (t · c) 14:50, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the advice. I'll translate the quotation. N Oneemuss (talk) 14:55, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

quotation; germane; test edit
i made an edit to add a quotation for 'germane'; arthur golding trans. of ovid's metamorphoses lines;460-2 bk. 1. it was deleted as a test edit. what did i do wrong? look the quote up, this is honest, true, fact. i do believe it does cast a question on the shakespeare/ hamlet/ german assumption.
 * It looks like it was removed because you added it as plain text with no formatting. By the way, your keyboard probably has a key allowing you to type uppercase letters. SemperBlotto (talk) 21:40, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Your quotation isn't for the word "germane", it's german. DTLHS (talk) 21:43, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
 * DLTHS is right. I've salvaged the quote you added and put it on the entry for german. You can look at the source code of that entry to see how to format quotes in the future. In any case, thanks for contributing! — Kleio (t · c) 21:51, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

phrases around the case

 * that is the case / that is not the case
 * if that's the case

See also: d1g (talk) 12:03, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * avoir lieu
 * иметь место и имеет быть clarification at gramota.ru
 * means "to take place." "That is the case" is simply "c'est le cas" in French. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 17:55, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

User warning templates
Am I allowed to create a user warning template to warn users or can administrators only do that? Pkbwcgs (talk) 18:03, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I think that's fine. What warning do you want to create? DTLHS (talk) 18:07, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * In case you didn't see: Category:User warning templates. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:11, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Pkbwcgs (talk) 18:12, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Possible alterrnative etymology for 'anthropology' (not mentioned in that article in Wiktionary)
I have added a notion on subject to discussion about 'anthropos' at discussion about 'anthropos'. I got notified there that my addition to discussion could get undetected so I also post notification here. Marjan T. 193.77.152.190 16:22, 25 January 2017 (UTC)


 * But is an encyclopedia of philosophy a trustworthy source of etymological information? — Ungoliant (falai) 16:41, 25 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Do note that that derivation is specifically listed on the cited website in the context of speculative (ancient) etymology. The encyclopedia itself is quite trustworthy. — Kleio (t · c) 19:15, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

"Serbo-Croatian"
There is no "Serbo - Croatian" language.


 * That is only for the Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians. For Australians, South Africans, Brits, and Americans, Serbo-Croatian does exist. When we study the language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, or Montenegro, we study Serbo-Croatian. —Stephen (Talk) 11:09, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
 * What? —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:18, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians generally do not admit the existence of Serbo-Croatian. Americans, Brits, South Africans, Australians, and New Zealanders are open to the idea that it does exist, and if you learn it, you can speak and understand Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian. You just have to remember to tell Serbians that you speak Serbian, Croats that you speak Croat, and Bosnians that you speak Bosnian. A few other minor adjustments, depending on who you're talking to. —Stephen (Talk) 11:25, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
 * In other words, the distinction is purely political, not linguistic. There are linguistic differences within Serbo-Croatian, of course, but they don't correspond to the artificial Serbian vs. Croatian vs. Bosnian (vs. Montenegrin) distinctions. . —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:38, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Could someone give me the gist of this paragraph (in Chinese)
http://imgur.com/8pjvnw5l.png Thanks in advance.

(it's about the variation of the futuritive participle in Eastern Yugur.) Crom daba (talk) 16:53, 28 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Translation:
 * The affix, after imperfect tense of adjectival verbs ending in certain consonants, is sometimes in the form of -kə/-qə, coexisting with -gə/-ɢə. For example, hog-kə (hog-gə) “to beat”, ɢailəɢ-qə (ɢailəɢ-ɢə) “to float”.
 * Adjectival verbs in Eastern Yugur are the same as adjectives in that they can also represent the name of the person or thing associated with the movement represented by the adjectival verb. In these cases, the word can decline with respect to number and case like a noun, but only the continuative form can be affixed to form the plural, only the continuative and imperfect forms can have various case affixes, and the perfective forms can usually only be followed by conjugational (?) and case suffixes.
 * Examples of plural affixes after continuative forms of adjectival verbs:
 * Wyang (talk) 04:54, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Crom daba (talk) 15:29, 1 February 2017 (UTC)