Wiktionary talk:About Lingala

Older discussion
The original content of this page, which was not really an "about" page so much as a collection of older discussion, is here: WT:About Lingala/Old. Much of the discussion there concerns points like orthography that are still relevant, and should be discussed here. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 14:21, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Available Templates
I've just been adding quite a few entries that I'm coming across, mainly with help from Wiktionary en français. I had been using Template:head all this time, but now I see we have Template:ln-noun and Template:ln-noun-form. No verb one is available yet. There is no documentation for any of them at the moment. Michael Ly (talk) 10:20, 7 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Using Template:plural of will be useful too. Michael Ly (talk) 11:00, 8 June 2018 (UTC)


 * ? —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 05:25, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping., I can help creating and standardising templates. Although I haven't studied Lingala, I have studied other Bantu languages and a lot of the infrastructure should be relatively easy to adapt. Making a new version of that can predict plurals and handle some more complexity seems like a top priority to me. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 11:15, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * , I have created as a replacement for . Please test it out and see what you think. Class 11 was especially problematic; I was unsure of which plural class to have as the default, because it seems to vary, and I don't think its autogenerated plural is 100% correct for class 10 plurals. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 12:29, 12 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Will have a good root around my list for appropriate test cases when I have time later on. Thanks for the template! Michael Ly (talk) 13:26, 12 June 2018 (UTC)


 * . I have just "created" the template, although it's pretty manual [basically forces you to input all of the relevant forms]. Completely copied off the French Wiktionary's one, but it seems without any of the style. Feel free to edit it and change it round. I shall be using it for any adjectives and some prepositions that I come across. Michael Ly (talk) 15:47, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Manual is always bad. We can do better (and we can do it in a more aesthetically pleasing table). I can adapt to make a Lingala version, but you'll have to give me the rules or wait for me to dig them up from the materials I have. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:13, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
 * : Sure. As far as I know, the actual number of declinable words in Lingala is very small. However, in classical Lingala it's quite simple; the noun class prefix is used for declinable adjectives and for the particle ya, with some small differences to do with assimilation (mo- become mw- before a is the only one I remember). Michael Ly (talk) 14:48, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Verb sorting
How does one allow sorting by root? Everything is under k- as infinitive forms are under ko- in Lingala usually. Should we adopt the French Wiktionary's convention of having dash then root? --Michael Ly (talk) 11:19, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Verbs should all be entered under the root, without putting the hyphen in the pagename. This is our custom for all Bantu languages; see for example. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 11:12, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That would mean we need to do so. Michael Ly (talk) 11:57, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * ✅. I also created for the infinitive forms; see  for an example of how to use it. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 12:03, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much ! Very helpful. And thanks for your guidance too! 13:21, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Did you see the section above as well? —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 13:23, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Class 11/10: plurals, nasals and orthography
My knowledge of Bantu historical morpho-phonology is pretty much non-existent... but class 11/10 nouns bring up certain issues, which intersect with the orthography issue of pre-nasalised consonants.

, the template does not remove the nasal consonant of lompɛ́tɛ́ to produce mpɛ́tɛ́ (instead producing *nmpɛ́tɛ́). I'd imagine the spelling lopɛ́tɛ́ (which is more common) would have produced the correct plural. Compare lokásá (which I actually hadn't realised was lonkásá in a more specified orthography), which produces nkásá correctly.

So basically, if we go for "maximally specified orthography", 11/10 nouns just lop off the lo-. If we go for "most common modern orthography", it needs to put the correct (homorganic) nasal on. Would it be robust enough to do both?

As we have decided to favour lompɛ́tɛ́ over lopɛ́tɛ́, and lonkásá over lokásá, I'll change these back. However, would it be worth having redirects for all of these non pre-nasalised versions?

Michael Ly (talk) 12:10, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * , thank you for testing it and bringing up some interesting points. I have a good knowledge of Bantu historical morphology and a poor knowledge of Lingala in particular (I just started studying from the FSI manual to get up to speed), so this input is very helpful. Here are my thoughts:
 * 1. I think it should be robust enough to do both. I'll make some changes in a few minutes and you can test it out again, ideally on every possible initial consonant.
 * 2. I see the original forms, with the prenasalised consonants, as being the best to lemmatise under, but we should have the other ones as soft redirects. The best way to do that is to have the definition line show to point readers to the main entry. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 13:37, 13 June 2018 (UTC)