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Barnstars The Barnstar of Diligence I, Agnistus award this Barnstar to Kwami for his invaluable contributions to the Origin of hangul article. The Anti-Flame Barnstar I think you deserve a golden fire extinguisher for helping me deal with that misguided revolutionary Serendious 10:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC) The Graphic Designer's Barnstar For your wonderful moon mass charts, I offer the Graphic designer's barnstar. Serendious 12:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC) The Original Barnstar For transforming Rongorongo from a sketchy, unhelpful mess into a tightly organized family of articles covering the entire Rongorongo corpus in a manner both scholarly and accessible, I award you this Barnstar. May it bring you much mana! Fishal (talk) 02:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC) The Working Man's Barnstar For getting all the EL61 links changed to Haumea (dwarf planet), I think you deserve the working man's barnstar. Must have been tedious as heck. 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On 6 June 2011, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Tambora language, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that Tambora, a Papuan language, was once spoken among unrelated languages in the middle of Indonesia near Bali, far to the west of Papua, until the trading state that used it was wiped out by the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815? (check page views, quick check)
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IPA on Saulnierville, Nova Scotia

Hi; I just happened to be staying in Clare, of which Saulnierville is one of the component communities; there's a non-IPA pronunciation item on this page, and likely on other articles in the same grouping (Clare#Communities). Please note that the pronunciation should be in Acadian French, and may vary from "regular" Canadian French (Quebec French).Skookum1 (talk) 15:19, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

No, I just checked, & not on any of the others. Add the Acadian if you like (I'm unfamiliar with it), but we normally use standard French + ɛː, and that's all I was competent to add. — kwami (talk) 15:21, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Diaeresis

Why are you and Erutuon ripping out content to make Diaeresis into a disambig? Please don't forget WP:FIXDABLINKS. --JaGa 10:13, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

It partly duplicated trema, and once that was accounted for, there was nothing left but a dab. — kwami (talk) 17:32, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

IPA n vs. m

I generally marvel at your treatment of IPA transcriptions (although I sometimes think a simpler set of IPA characters would help readers more), occasionally I'm baffled. In this edit at Carnival in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, you twice represented an "n" (as in November) with a double-character rendered as m̩: "Fastelavend" = and "Fastelabend" = . With some enlargement, I can make out that there is a small dot below the "m", a symbol that I can't find in the International Phonetic Alphabet. I assume it's some kind of modifier. Now, when I listen to myself pronouncing these words, I can't detect any hint of "m" – my lips never close. To me, it's very clearly an "n", just like it is in the root of those words, Template:Lang-de (evening). What does m̩ mean? Curious, Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:32, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

You're probably right.

The stroke under the means it's syllabic, as in English rhythm. You'll notice, I hope, that that wasn't my transcription; I merely linked it up to an IPA template (IPA-xx for misc. minor languages) so that it will be more visible from now on and can be taken care of later on. I barely know any standard German, let alone Low Saxon, but I rather doubt that's correct. (For all I know it was supposed to be standard German, in which case it's obviously wrong.) I tagged it as 'dubious' and added a 'needs IPA' tag to hopefully attract s.o. who knows what they're talking about. You might want to put in a request at WP:IPA for German. — kwami (talk) 05:00, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm terribly sorry about the attribution – I clearly misread the diff. I followed you suggestion and asked at IPA for German. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:50, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Are "non-Min" and "Ping-Yue" Attested

I notice that you have added the categories non-Min and Ping-Yue to the page, the categories used should be representative. There are many non's which describe Pinghua, why not say non-hakka? The dividing of Chinese into Min and non-Min then sub-dividing is not a system classification supported by the majority of linguists, the number of speakers of Min is less than 10% of all Chinese speakers, and as such should not be included as if it were a widely accepted convention. The classification of Ping-Yue has some linguist justification, though the categorization should be applied throughout but it is not use in say . However the use of Ping-Yue on the pages which at present say Yue would lead to many objections, because whilst it has some justification it is not widely accepted convention, which suggests the correct place for information on the relationship between Pinghua and Yue is within the article itself, not a side panel. Johnkn63 (talk) 13:25, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

The number of Min speakers is irrelevant to the classification. There are numerous accounts of only being able to trace non-Min back to Middle Chinese, with Min going back further, though you're right, it would be nice if there were a non-negative term for it; I also need to confirm that this implies early divergence rather than simply greater divergence since MC.

• Jerry Norman, 2003, "The Chinese Dialects: Phonology", in Thurgood & LaPolla, The Sino-Tibetan languages, p 81

"It is generally recognized that the Min dialects ... lie outside the mainstream of Chinese linguistic development. ... Where in non-Min dialects ...., Min dialects show ..."

• Edwin Pulleyblank, 1984, Middle Chinese: a study in historical phonology, p 148

"Karlgren found tha, with the exception of Min, all dialects ... could be compredended within the phonological categories of ... the rhyme tables. There is very little in modern dialects ... (always excepting Min), which cannot be ..."

but again you're right; what we reconstruct as "Middle Chinese" is only one lect of many varieties of Chinese spoken at the time, and it doesn't follow that Min diverged earlier simply because they're now more divergent. — kwami (talk) 18:48, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

All good points for an article. Regardless of exactly when Min split off from the the mainstream of Chinese development, Min is the name of a branch, the mainstream is usually referred to 'Chinese' not 'non-Min'. By the same line of reasoning 'non-Min' should be divided into 'Ping-Yue' and 'non-Ping-Yue'. The lists of linguistics 'non-'s' is great, but it is very non-conventional to list them in a lects family tree. Johnkn63 (talk) 17:56, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

That wouldn't follow unless Chinese divides into Ping-Yue and everything else, and I'm not aware that it does. — kwami (talk) 18:49, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi

Hello Kwami, I was debating with User:本本一世 on the creditbility of his sources, in section "Population figure citation?" of Sichuanese Mandarin talk page. Can you come and offer a 3rd perspective? --LLTimes (talk) 21:03, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Generic trojans

Do you still think Jupiter trojan and the like should have lower-case 't'? I do. Rothorpe (talk) 00:42, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Capital "Trojan" would IMO stand on its own.

I'll move it. It's been stable as lc for a month; the previous move was reverted because it was cut&paste rather than a proper article move.

Oops, Serendipidous changed the caps before I could do so. Should be discussed. — kwami (talk) 00:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I've commented there. Glad you agree. Rothorpe (talk) 02:04, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem is a conflict between grammatical style and common usage. On WP, common usage generally wins out. "Trojan" generally is capitalized even when used as a generic noun. — kwami (talk) 05:14, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Tchaikovsky

Hi! You recently moved the Music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky page. I don't know if you noticed, but there was a move discussion going on on the talk page. The discussion actually favoured the target where you moved the article so no problem there, but apparently you forgot to move the talk page of the article, leaving it at Talk:Music of Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky. I've moved the talk page to the correct location now. Also, when you move an article after a move discussion, could you also close the discussion by at least removing the {{movereq}} tag on the talk page so that people know that the request has been already actioned? Anyway thanks for your work :) Regards, Jafeluv (talk) 05:34, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry! Will do. I don't know why talk pages sometimes don't move with their article. — kwami (talk) 05:36, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it's because the software for some reason doesn't delete the talk page even if you tick the "yes, delete the page" box. So if the talk page has any file history it has to be manually deleted. Jafeluv (talk) 05:58, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

That makes sense. — kwami (talk) 05:59, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Croatian (continued)

Our discussion has been sort of drowned out by the rapid flow of postings at Talk:Croatian language. I'd like to continue the discussion here (or my talk page, I suppose. You decide). I'm particularly interested in the idea that the ~20 isoglosses that Greenburg provides are irrelevant to language (B/C/S/M) identification. What leads you to assert this? — Ƶ§œš¹ 04:02, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Maybe we aren't looking at the same thing. The map of isoglosses he gave does not correspond to ethnic boundaries, but to dialect. There are Croatian words and Serbian words, but they are typically borrowed vs. calqued vocab like the examples he gave, and cannot be easily mapped since Serbs and Croats live near each other. It'd be like trying to find Protestant/Catholic/Mormon isoglosses for English. The only way to get a geographic isogloss for those words would be to have ethnic cleansing. There are a few other things which tend to be Serb or Croat, but AFAIK most are used by both communities, they're just more official in one.

Do you mean the 17 isoglosses on Map 3 of the pdf I linked to? They appear to separate Sloven-Kajkavian on the one hand vs. Chakavian-Shtokavian-Macedonian on the other. I don't see how you'd pick S & C out of that.

I don't know about continuing the discussion. So far the "Croatian is a Slavic language!!!!" crowd have failed to provide any references; IMO Ivan's adequately debunked the unsupported claims that have been made. I'm sure there's a lot more to be said, and we're probably glossing over a lot, but I've spent much more time on this than I'm actually interested in it: European languages aren't my thing. — kwami (talk) 08:27, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry Kwami, but the Burgenland Croatian also in Austria, Croatia and Hungary officially language and not dialect. Doncsecz 13:44, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, please change accordingly. — kwami (talk) 14:10, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I'm discussing the issues with Ivan as well, so it's no biggie. — Ƶ§œš¹ 16:46, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian

The best way to describe all the languages is by using the diasystem method, and the best uniting name for this is Central South Slavic diasystem. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=geh261xgI8sC&pg=PA518&lpg=PA518&dq=weinrich+diasystem&source=bl&ots=DW062gZ5ip&sig=a-zsU_fwYW3iNvlLzGyiJPGrE3s&hl=en&ei=A8mxTPbAA5OuvgObvImwBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CCkQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false gives the best reasoning. Serbo-Croatian can be as a separate article describing the history behind this standard, however the way the current languages Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegran can be best described through the diasystem method, if you read the pages in the book this makes perfect sense. I would please ask you to reconsider when reverting the edit that I have posted. The Central South Slavic diasystem is used by the European Union. Vodomar (talk) 14:34, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

'Diasystem' and 'pluricentric standand' are pretty much the same thing in this case. The latter is easier to understand, though.

I once requested that we split the article into SC = the language vs. SC = the Yugoslav bistandard, but was voted down.

The term CSS is generally dismissed as being linguistically inaccurate (we've brought it up before); it's also unfamiliar (even among linguists, let alone the general public) and so fails WP:COMMONNAME.

However, if the EU starts using it, that would change things. Do you have any evidence for that? If, say, Croatia were accepted into the EU with its language being called "Central SS", so that Serbia could be admitted without increasing translation costs, that would be a very good reason to rename the article. — kwami (talk) 14:51, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Wait till 2011 I guess. Kwami, just break out the big impressive book of languages you have and just source Vodomar's 's, may as well leave them rather then getting into an edit war over citation tags! It is, after all, a C-class article. I'm sure the numerous sources thrown around in various discussions contain enough to provide some sources for what remains. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:47, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I can only empathize with you for trying to keep some resemblance of NPOV in that article and one in the section above. NPOV generally seems a lost cause on Misplaced Pages in articles that people care deeply about. (I saw your posts on User talk:Courcelles, which I was watching hoping he'd reply on trivial matter than unfortunately requires administrative rights.) Tijfo098 (talk) 20:01, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for any support you can provide. Israel-Palestine seems to have worked out beautifully (or at least it had a couple years ago when I read the discussion), but it required an insane amount of discussion. I made similar edits to Hindi and Urdu, and I'm been impressed: there's been remarkably little resistance, and what there has been has been mostly rational and thoughtful. Hopefully ARBMAC will keep things reasonable for Croatian. — kwami (talk) 20:09, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

ANI

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:12, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Pashto dialects

Hi, can you kindly check the Pashto dialects new article? Thanks! Khestwol (talk) 10:18, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, will comment there. — kwami (talk) 16:01, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Sex positions

Actually, given that it's about a class of things, the plural seems fine by WP:SINGULAR; I feel no need to move it. --Cybercobra (talk) 08:45, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Sock Puppet to evade block

That anon IP at Croatian language is probably User:Jack Sparrow 3. Sounds like him, especially the "You don't speak Croatian, you don't have any right here" crap. --Taivo (talk) 14:24, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Probably. If it keeps up, I may ask for a check, but it hardly seems worth the effort for the ones who have to do the checking. — kwami (talk) 14:34, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

If he keeps flooding the talk page with his invective, though... I leave it up to you as to what to do and the best time to do it. --Taivo (talk) 14:39, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

"SC" - questions

User:Flopy asked some questions on my talk page and requested that you answer as well. I don't mind if you want to answer on my talk page. --Taivo (talk) 21:52, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

ANI/User:Kubura

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Keristrasza (talk) 11:57, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Good news

Hi, maybe your IPA-trained eye ear might find a hiccup, but I expect you can enjoy listening to my recent this and this. -DePiep (talk) 22:22, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that was a lot of work!

A few of the sound files are clipped. They only play the end, or just part of the middle: ɡ, f, v, ɬ, ɮ. — kwami (talk) 22:33, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Then let's focus on ɡ Voiced velar plosive: to me it sounds the whole sound file is played. Can you confirm the sound file itself is OK: To me it's technical (and fun), I cannot judge a phonetic sound now way. -DePiep (talk) 23:08, 15 October 2010 (UTC) Oops, back into context ;-) -DePiep (talk) 23:16, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It should be , but all I hear is . — kwami (talk) 00:16, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

So, the soundfile is wrong, not the new audio-chart. The filename (in my templates) is determined by using IPA-symbol --> {{IPAsound}}. So its ɡ --> Voiced velar plosive --> file:Voiced velar plosive.ogg. Again, I cannot change the file. ~.ogg-file wrong --> result wrong. -DePiep (talk) 00:24, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I rather doubt it's as simple as the sound file being wrong, because that would've been caught. I assume it's a matter of it not being properly supported, some formatting that's different between the files for /g/ and /k/. But I think you're right is assuming it's not your table. The table seems fine. — kwami (talk) 01:38, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The explanatory text with Voiced velar plosive, file:voiced velar plosive.ogg , says the sound you hear is as intended: "Pronunciation of a voiced velar plosive, between two s : ." So not a technical hiccup. -DePiep (talk) 20:34, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't hear the second . — kwami (talk) 20:39, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

My point is, that the creator (uploader) of that file described it as not being as one might expect. So no formatting or support thing then. -DePiep (talk) 20:42, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Revert...

hello... I understand if you have some concerns about my addition. I thought it was meaningful, and decent info. I'm a little confused by what you said in your edit (revert) comment, that the edit was "misleading", and "just as it would be to say about English numbers." I'm not totally sure what you mean. Are you saying that Asimov (a giant when it came to understanding things like this) was wrong? Or that Roman numerals can't be scrambled that way, though generally won't be? And "decreasing value" is what's normally done? The point is that it's accurate and good-faith. And according to Misplaced Pages policy, only actual vandalism or truly inaccurate things, (or totally unrelated things), should be summarily "reverted". Undoing or reverting, per WP recommendation and guidelines, should be done rarely.... And not for good faith accurate edits or additions. I hope we can maybe work something out, or maybe move it or modify my contrib here, instead of just totally removing it. Let me know what you think. And thanks for your attention to this. ResearchRave (talk) 00:34, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure it was in good faith, but that doesn't mean it was accurate. The year 1982 could be worded "nine hundred one thousand two and eighty", and it would be understandable, but that doesn't mean anyone actually says it that way. Do you have any refs that Roman numerals are ever used out of order?

You're correct, only vandalism should be summarily reverted. But any edit that does not improve the article can be undone. (I don't see much point in the distinction, but it's one of politeness.) — kwami (talk) 01:33, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

"Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian" article name

Do you think the title "Differences between Serbo-Croatian standard varieties" would be a more suitable article name than "Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian"? -- ◅PRODUCER _(TALK) 20:18, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I prefer the current name, as I suspect that most people looking into it are coming from the POV of the national languages. — kwami (talk) 22:45, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

What about Montenegrin? --JorisvS (talk) 22:37, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Not yet really standardized, though we could add it as well. I guess I don't object too much to the change of name, I just think it's more transparent as is. — kwami (talk) 00:43, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I know. Yet it is already mentioned in the article (and is included in the map). It would be strange not to include those bit and pieces of Montenegrin that are already kind of standardized, but IMO this should be reflected in the title. I'd say "Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian" is then really too cumbersome a title, though, I concur, more transparent. And if we change it to the suggested title I'd expect a surge of POV editors we are all too familiar with. --JorisvS (talk) 17:05, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

It should certainly be added, if anyone wants to take it on. That's independent of the move, however.

If we are going to move, might I suggest "Differences between the national varieties of Serbo-Croatian"? Seems to flow better with that word order. — kwami (talk) 21:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Sourcing of File:Masses of all moons.png

Hi there, there was a request at WP:GL/I to vectorize File:Masses of all moons.png. I was hoping you could direct me to a source that has the numbers you used to create the graph so I can make an accurate vector. Thanks, Shep 22:34, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, I simply used the masses in the articles. The current listed masses may have been updated slightly, but I doubt enough to make any significant difference. — kwami (talk) 00:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Shep 20:15, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Stockholm pronunciation

Hi, I'm sorry to disturb you but I need some help about the Swedish pronunciation of Stockholm. The discussion continues here.--Carnby (talk) 22:43, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm the wrong person to ask! — kwami (talk) 22:52, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The distinct Urdu language

I speak American* (and so can you!)

*Actually, not.

First off, Kwami, we in the reality-based community are supposed to pretend to take Fox "News" seriously. After all, even the current muslin secular socialist POTUS does.

Well of course Urdu and Hindi are the same language -- but that's an observation from mere common sense, whereas it might be better to say that a language is a dialect with an army and navy; and as we know all too well, both India and Pakistan most certainly do have them, air forces, and even WMDs. (Though it's all a jolly good show.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:07, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

;) But on a more serious note, Hindi and Urdu aren't even different dialects. If Urdu were based on the dialect of Lucknow and Hindi on Varanasi, I'd have less problem accepting them as separate "languages". But when Hindi and Urdu speakers can't even tell each other apart, it becomes too much to swallow. This is a religious difference, more along the lines of Irish militants asking people to recite the alphabet to figure out which side they're on. — kwami (talk) 00:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

And certainly a thick mist of silliness does hang over many en:WP articles related the subcontinent. -- Hoary (talk) 00:52, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

IPA pages

Question for you - hopefully an easy one. I created Misplaced Pages:IPA_for_Manx_Gaelic so we can use the {{IPA-gv formatting as we have for {{IPA-gd etc to direct folk at a more relevant page than just the generic IPA page. But somehow the formatting isn't working (see Cammag for example) - it doesn't look like a redirect that's needed, so I'm doing something wrong but what? Akerbeltz (talk) 11:05, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

You need to create {{IPA-gv}}. Every language extension needs a separate template; even the empty ones (without dedicated keys) are redirects to IPA-all. You can copy the coding from {{IPA-gd}}. — kwami (talk) 11:26, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Done, many thanks! Not that many languages in that list actually, oddly enough. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:35, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Differing points of view

The new definition captures the differing opinions of the two camps of taught that has burnt a endless number of hours on this debate on the Croatian Language. This is in the spirit of Misplaced Pages - as this should be inclusive not exclusive of differing and valid opinions. Vodomar (talk) 02:14, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that there are not two differing points of view within the linguistic references. You cannot claim Ethnologue to be a reference because it clearly includes Croatian within "Serbo-Croatian". You, yourself, have accepted their use of the term "macrolanguage" for Serbo-Croatian, which clearly and unequivocally includes Croatian. You have no sound references whatsoever within the English linguistic literature that do not include Croatian within a language usually called "Serbo-Croatian". There is no difference of opinion in the specialist literature on this. You have a POV that you are pushing, but you have no sound references for it. Your edit is just WP:WEASELly including your unreferenced POV. --Taivo (talk) 03:12, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

My gosh, all of you, WP:LEADFIXATION. Create a section in the article to fully explain both points of view, the linguistic and the social. Leave the lead alone for awhile. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 03:16, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

It's actually already discussed in the second paragraph of the lead. The first sentence should reflect the consensus of the overwhelming majority of the scientific community. --Taivo (talk) 03:20, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Per WP:LEAD, that doesn't matter. It should be discussed in the article itself, not just the lead. Perhaps having both opinions explained in the article more fully will help solve things. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 05:20, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I have no objections to airing the details of Croatian nationalist sentiment concerning the language in the article. That's where it belongs, not in the first sentence. --Taivo (talk) 05:24, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

We already have it in the SC article, and link to that, since it's not really a big deal for Croatian itself. But it wouldn't hurt to summarize it there. — kwami (talk) 06:22, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Apparently it is a big deal for Croatian itself. I'll try and draft a section, can't put it in now though, obviously. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:18, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I was hoping one of our level-headed Croat editors would draft what was needed, but I guess it ain't happening. — kwami (talk) 08:44, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, unless they're looking at this thread, they may not have thought of it. Altogether waaay to much focus on the lead. Lead Fixation, I'm sure there's a wikilink to it somewhere... Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:50, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I thought Flopy might. — kwami (talk) 09:51, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

No doubt his input would be very useful. Oh well, there's three days to do it. Remind me why I'm associated with you lot again? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:02, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I have two hypotheses: (1) insanity, and (2) masochism. — kwami (talk) 10:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm going with 2. Anyway, unfortunately it was hard to separate fluff from actual sourced information in those long talk pages, but I created a bare-bones statement of fact attempt here. The EU was rather disappointing, it was happy to call Bosnian a standard of Serbo-croatian, but shied away from stating Croatian or Serbian were the same language, saying only they were closely related. I pulled the sources directly off the talk pages, with the assumption they say what editors said what they said in the talk page if I couldn't access/understand them. I'll alert Flopy and Ivan to the sandbox, hopefully they'll be able to add better sources for both opinions in southcentralslavicdialectsystemserbocroatianBCS. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:10, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Wish I could find the ref: the EU has apparently indicated that it is not willing to accept Serbian and Croatian as distinct official languages, due to translation costs. I don't know what that will mean for Croatia's accession. — kwami (talk) 12:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Those sources will become plentiful by next year I reckon. I now want a copy of that giant ethnologue book, that would look impressive to visitors. Feel free to edit the sandbox, if that wasn't obvious. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 12:28, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I was at a book fair where they were selling the 15th ed. for US$20. They might still do that, if you just want it for your coffee table. — kwami (talk) 12:30, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

There's this which suggests that the European Greens tabled a motion like that but were rejected, dunno if something more detailed is around. Akerbeltz (talk) 16:17, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Because of some private obligations I will not be activ in next few days. I am also sysop on Croatia Misplaced Pages and bussy there because of that. For now: , (".....with Croatian being treated as the 24th official language in the EU."), . My problem is that my English should be better to be able write in the articles. --Flopy (talk) 19:46, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Not to be picky Kwami, but you should undo your change to the Croatian language article. It's not fair if the rest of us can't edit :( Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:12, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

My edit has nothing to do with any dispute in the article. It's due to an edit war over the map, where the uploader insists that "Bosnian" and "Bosniak" are separate languages, and reverts my corrections. Rather than edit war with him, I changed to the new file name. — kwami (talk) 10:15, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, well, it is done as best as I can now. I was struggling to find a title, so feel free to suggest a better one. I tried best to explain both views, and my intent is to directly copy paste it into the article as its own level two section. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 02:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Ganga -> Ganges_Ganges-2010-10-21T16:13:00.000Z">

I have been observed that you have changed Ganga -> Ganges in many articles. In some articles, Ganga (Ganges in Hinduism) is used as denoting the goddess of the river, where the word Ganga is the right word. Please check the context before mechanically replacing the term using AWB. --Redtigerxyz 16:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)_Ganges"> _Ganges">

I've been redirecting Ganga to that article where I've noticed it. The goddess, the Ganga dynasties, various celebrities and films named Ganga, and even the Kenyan city of Ganga were all linked to the article on the river. The links should now be more precise, though I'm sure I missed some out of the hundreds that needed changing. — kwami (talk) 16:23, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Ganges is the exonym of the river. The source in Chapekar uses the word Ganga, why are you changing it to Ganges. What is sp/rd, replaced: Ganga? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 20:46, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

We use Ganges on WP as the English name, unless there's specific reason for Ganga. We hardly need to follow the choices of our sources, especially as they may contradict one another. — kwami (talk) 00:41, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The use of exonyms is discouraged. Misplaced Pages is about verifiability and not truth. The quoted matter should shoe fidelity to the source. What does the edit summary sp/rd, replaced: Ganga mean? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 07:39, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I've asked twice at the naming guideline pages whether national or international names should be used on WP, and used Ganga/Ganges as an example. I was told that it wasn't a good example, because it was so obvious that it should be "Ganges" that there was no point in discussing it. Their reason was that both Ganga and Ganges are used within India, whereas only Ganges is used outside India, so on WP the term to use is "Ganges". If you want to use the provincial form, then the way to go is to first get Ganges moved to Ganga.

It's also not true that exonyms are dispreferred. We use lots: Germany, Greece, China, Japan, even India itself. — kwami (talk) 08:02, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I certainly agree that exonyms in general are fine when they're the common name in English, but is it really true that Ganges is the name in English of the goddess, as opposed to the river that embodies the goddess? Granted that it's a subtle distinction, but I have never heard of Ganges as the name of a goddess, only as the name of a river. Not that I'd ever heard of Ganga at all, or of the goddess (I knew that the river was considered sacred, but not a goddess), so obviously I'm no authority, but it strikes me as at least plausible that the name of the goddess would be different from the name of the river, even though they're the same thing (see Hesperus is Phosphorus). --Trovatore (talk) 08:22, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, as I've said above, that the goddess should be Ganga, and I've corrected links to the Ganges when it was the goddess. Sometimes, however, "Ganges" is simply anthropomorphized, in which case I could see arguments for either. There are also situations where it's appropriate to use the local form, such as with etymologies of names which contain Ganga. — kwami (talk) 08:26, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I can only speak for the name India which is what Indians themselves call India, when referring to it in English, however the Indian spelling for the River Ganga is Ganga in English too. See this link , Times of India, Hindustan Times and others use the appellation Ganga, only BBC and Australians use the archaic Ganges, perhaps if you wish, I will put a disclaimer that Indian English spellings and endonyms are used in the said article. I have seen such disclaimers elsewhere. Using Ganges is like using Cawnpore for Kanpur! The Bangladeshis call their capital Dhaka, the British persist in using Dacca, same story for Canton and Guanzhou. It is similar here. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:08, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I've tried asking how in general we should handle this, and have failed to get an answer. But Ganges is not "archaic", it's the normal word for the river. In India, both forms are used by the government. Outside of India, pretty much only "Ganges" is used. Everyone knows what the Ganges is, but most English speakers have never heard of "Ganga". If you polled people, I suspect that most would think you mean marijuana. — kwami (talk) 14:20, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I have substantiated my arguments with an example. You are merely speculating. I have suggested that a disclaimer be put on the article. The name also carries links. A large proportion of English speakers are from the Indian sub-continent, they all know what Ganga means. How can River Ganga be confused with marijuana? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:27, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

If you ask people what "Ganga" means, they'll think you mean "marijuana". (e.g.)

My Webster's dictionary, for example, has a 100-page appendix of geographical names. "Ganga" is not listed. It's not even listed as an alternate form under "Ganges", which of course is listed. So it's a question of a local/national form which no-one else will recognize, vs. an international form which everyone will recognize. That's why on the guide talk pages they said it's no contest.

Using British etc. spellings is a different matter: everyone can read it even if they don't use it themselves. Using names that normal English speakers outside the country don't know, when there's a perfectly good name that they do know, violates WP:COMMONNAME. — kwami (talk) 14:31, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Yogesh, sometimes the commonly known names change - Peking is now Beijing and most folk can relate Mumbai to Bombay. But the thing is, it's a retroactive step to introduce these into dictionaries and encyclopaedias; they don't prescribe new words, they list "what's out there in common use". Now it may be that in *India* people know what Ganga refers to but in terms of global English, I must concur with kwami. Without context, my first guess would have been weed (see Ganga (disambiguation)), with context, I might have guessed at Ganges but wouldn't have been sure. One day, when as many people abroad use Ganga for Ganges, same as they do Beijing, then fine, but not until then. And I suspect that might not happen, Mumbai and Beijing are cities that are permanently in the news. The Ganges/Ganga just doesn't crop up often enough for that to happen I feel. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:38, 22 October 2010 (UTC)_Ganges"> _Ganges">

And as an aside, it cuts both ways. If we were to expect people to abandon all historical place name variants, however inaccurate, I'm assuming all of India would stop calling Germany Germany and start calling it Deutschland? Some of these names are just part of the history of a people and their language. You probably call Alexander the Great something no Greek would ever understand... Akerbeltz (talk) 14:41, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no scope for ambiguity with internal links provided. The river's Indian name is not only Ganga, but also that is what it is called in English too in India and the subcontinent, hundereds of millions of English users. There is a clear understanding in Misplaced Pages that the subject should govern the style of spelling of the article. Chapekar brothers is an Indian subject and so uses Indian spellings including for proper nouns. I have provided proof that Indian publications like Times of India, Hindustan Times, the government, others use Ganga, for hundreds of millions of Indians Ganga leaves no scope for any ambiguity? Many times Britishers pronounced Gandhi Ghandi, should that spelling be used. There are many instances for that spelling too. Germany is called Germany by the Germans in English, India is called India by Indians in English, the river is called Ganga by Indians in English. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:52, 22 October 2010 (UTC)_Ganges"> _Ganges">

See this search result for river Ganga. I do not see any link to marijuana anywhere Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:57, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Well of course, if you put "river" in it! What would you expect? See this search result for smoke ganga. I don't see a link to the Ganges anywhere. Most of our articles didn't say "River Ganga", they just said "Ganga". But even "River Ganga" is inadequate: it's obviously a river, but people won't know which river.

Anyway, I'm not the one you need to convince, it's everyone else in the world outside India. Consensus is for "Ganges"; if you wish to change the consensus, you should bring it up at the main article, as various Indian editors have done many times before. — kwami (talk) 15:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

There are many words in English that have the same spellings but different meanings; we understand the meaning by the context. In the article Chapekar was referring to a bath he took in the river Ganga, with the initial letter capitalised. No scope for any ambiguity. Please comment on Ghandi too. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:06, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't care about 'Ghandi'. "Ganga" is not an English word outside India. If you want to change the WP consensus, then start a discussion. Even if you convince me, the article will stay at "Ganges" until you convince others to move it, and if the article is at Ganges, we should call it Ganges. — kwami (talk) 15:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

See the article Xuanzang, see the many Romanisations, when I went to school (1970s) we used the spelling Hiuen Tsiang, my daughter’s text book uses the spelling Yuan Chwang, would you go on editing all other variations? Each article has an equilibrium, the Ganges article has achieved its for the moment. The Chapekar brothers article uses the spelling Ganga, there is no ambiguity about what it refers too. Why do you have a problem with that. Ghandi is just an example how, names are difficult to pronounce, and so they are changed to what is comfortable to that language. Ganga is an Indian spelling for an Indian river, which is referred to in an Indian article. Why should it be objected to?

Because no-one outside India understands it! Why is that so difficult to understand? For the same reason we don't give the distance to the Moon in cubits. For the same reason we don't speak of the dihydrogen oxide of the Ganges.

You can repeat yourself all you want, but that's not likely to convince anyone. If you want a discussion, go to WP:MOS and start one. — kwami (talk) 15:26, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

That is what links are for, to get around such problems. Please compare with the Xuanzang example. Even cars dont drive on the same side of the road everywhere on the earth, there are bound to be some fitting problems, that is why we have adapters, pages linking here and there, internal links, and the ] facility available. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 15:33, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The Xuanzang example is utterly irrelevant: there is no established name, and we use pinyin because WP convention is to use pinyin.

Let me try this again: if you want a discussion on using Indian-English names in Indian articles, go to the MOS and start a discussion on using Indian-English names in Indian articles. — kwami (talk) 15:39, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Why not we discuss it first here let me understand you, if pinyin is considered standard for Chinese articles, why similar conventions are not considered for India? There is a certain standard/ convention/ practice of Romanisation of Indian names by Indians. Why the double standards?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:06, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

There are! We use "Ganges" instead of Ganga for the same reason we use "India" and "China" instead of Bharat and Zhongguo: it's English! Please, take this discussion somewhere else. You apparently will not understand, and I'm getting tired of hitting my head against a wall. — kwami (talk) 16:09, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't be upset. Please do not reply if you do not wish. But look at Beijing which is a pinyin spelling, apparently China is used instead of the pinyin spelling Zhongguo, but for Beijing the pinyin spelling is used, to there are exceptions to this rule. Your comparision Bharat and India is incorrect as this is about Romanisation and what spellings are used for sounds, more accurate would be Poona x Pune, Cawnpore x Kanpur, Jubblepore x Jabalpur, you don't use Jubblepore neither should you use Ganges at least in an Indian article, on an Indian subject. Don't bother to reply. Perhaps I would understand your viewpoint, perhaps you would mine. In the mean while will Ganga (Ganges) do?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 16:30, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

If there's a reason to use Ganga, as when mentioning that the Ganga dynasty may be named after it or s.t. like that, then yes, fine. But otherwise we normally go by common English usage. Personally, I'd by fine with "Peking" too, but Beijing is now established English usage, not just in China, but everywhere. For example, in my dictionary, under "Peking" it says: See BEIJING. When that happens with Ganges and Ganga, then we'll use that too. Meanwhile, the international form of the name is "Ganges", and since we're an international encyclopedia, that's the form we should use. — kwami (talk) 16:38, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

See you on the (Ganges) Ganga talk pageYogesh Khandke (talk) 16:59, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Sino-Tibetan

The issue is while there appears to be consensus that Tibetan, Burmese, Tangut, Newar etc. are related langauges the position of Sinitic is controversial. Matisoff says Sinitic and Tibeto-Burman are two branches of Sino-Tibetan. Van Driem rejects this and regards Sinitic as just another branch of Tibeto-Burman. Laurent Sagart, Guillaume Jacques and probably most people working in France agree in essence with van Driem, but prefer to call the family 'Sino-Tibetan' rather than Tibeto Burman. (The Chinese linguists for political reasons see Daic and Hmong-Mian as other branches along with Sinitic and TB in ST.) My objection is that the introductory summary should not give preference to any one of these views, and it was giving preference to Matisoff's. Tibetologist (talk) 06:38, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

"Sino-Tibetan" is historically just the French name of "Tibeto-Burman", so its use in French is not relevant to English naming. It was adopted into English specifically for a classification where Sinitic is a primary branch, with TB being restricted to a second branch of not-Sinitic. Van Driem, for example, uses TB as the name for the entire family exactly because he does not accept the ST theory of Sinitic as a primary branch. So, going at least by these sources, TB may include or not include Sinitic, depending on POV, but ST by definition includes TB as a primary division of it. The question then is not whether Sinitic is a primary branch of ST, but whether the ST theory is correct, rather like arguing whether Indo-Hittite or Niger-Kordofanian are correct rather than whether Hittite and Kordofanian are primary branches of those proposals. If a proposal is rejected, the solution IMO is to return to the name that predated the proposal: Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Tibeto-Burman. All the details of classification are handled at Tibeto-Burman for precisely this reason, with Sino-Tibetan covering that theory in particular. — kwami (talk) 06:45, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps, but French scholars use 'Sino-Tibetan' to refer to 'Tibeto-Burman' also when they write in English. This use of the word 'Sino-Tibetan' is just as much a part of the literature as the useage by Matisoff. I would be confortable with a wording such as "'Sino-Tibetan' predominantly refers a hypothesized language family of which Sinitic and Tibeto-Burman are primary members, but can secondarily be usedinterchangeably with 'Tibeto-Burman (q.v.)" or something like that. Tibetologist (talk) 21:18, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I'll give it a shot. — kwami (talk) 08:06, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Sources

The unsourced thing in your map is linguistic situation in Plav municipality. My map is made completely in accordance with data from listed sources, while your map does not provide a source that would claim that people in Plav are speakers of Bosnian. PANONIAN 11:10, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Your map is improperly sourced because it claims that "Bosnian" and "Bosniak" are separate languages rather than alternate names allowed in the census. I'm at a loss how you could not understand that, but I won't waste my time with you any further. — kwami (talk) 11:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

It is you who could not understand that census does not "allow alternate names", but list only languages which are considered different by the Statistical office. You repeat yourself over and over but you fail to provide a source that say that people in Plav are speakers of Bosnian. PANONIAN 11:20, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Hindi

Are you sure that you aren't edit warring in turn? This doesn't appear to me to be a clear case of vandalism. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:55, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Who was accused of vandalism? I don't see what you're referring to.

The problem with that article is that "Hindi" has multiple meanings, and it would be hard to assign one of them primacy. There are already articles for the ausbausprache (Standard Hindi), the abstandsprache (Hindi-Urdu), and the dachsprache (Hindi languages), so promoting one of those topics as the subject of the Hindi article would merely turn it into a content fork and lead to its merger. At the least I think we should discuss its place among all the other articles before radically changing its content. — kwami (talk) 21:46, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Sock in Linguistics

Hi kwamikagami,

Is it maybe time to call WP: Duck on the obvious supriyya sock currently disrupting Linguistics? I'm not getting involved this time in the discussion, and on-going edit war because I have better things to do with my time, but I've been watching from the sidelines and think that the evidence is mounting from the content of this user's edits, the games the user is playing, and the style of editing (e.g. making an edit, being reverted and then accusing the reverter of not following a non-existent consensus) all reveal the pattern we've seen with Supriyya and all her socks. Maunus tried to do a check user but all the old socks were stale so they wouldn't do it. Nevertheless, I think maybe WP: Duck is in order. Comhreir (talk) 16:10, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd have to review to see if it's that obvious. But FS has been blocked for edit warring, and I'm willing to block 'em again if it continues. We could maybe try a 1RR limit on FS too. Let's see if 'e learns to cooperate after the block. — kwami (talk) 21:32, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I could be wrong, but my suspicions have been mounting for a while. Best Comhreir (talk) 23:56, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Mergings

Hi Kwami, I noticed you added a merge template back into Hyderabadi Urdu after I removed it. When I get bored I have a have a go at the Merge backlog. I have no interest one way or the other if they are merged and my knowledge on the topic is too limited to make an argument either way. However, I read through the discussion and there were four comments opposed to the merge and none supporting it. If you do think the articles should be merged (you seem pretty knowledgeable on languages) I was hoping you wouldn't mind putting a comment as to why under the discussion. That way if it stays there for three more years it will be easier to decide what to do for a lay person like myself. Cheers AIRcorn (talk) 07:49, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Don't care that much myself. I didn't see your merge tag, and hadn't seen the comments on the talk page. I put it there because, once you remove the phrases (not what WP is generally about), there isn't much content to the article, and it could easily be covered at Dakhini. But I'll undo myself. — kwami (talk) 08:04, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Tribes and peoples

Hi just noticed your various Entiat (tribe) -> Entiat tribe and the like. The problem with this is the dual meaning of "tribe" in American English, with one meaning referring to the governments of various reservations. In the Canadian model, with one or two exceptions I can think of (Tlowitsis Tribe, which is a government, vs Tlowitsis which is teh actual people)., the normal "dab" is "people", as in Nicola people or Okanagan people, though in many cases the endonym is used (Secwepemc, Shishalh for the people, without "people", while the normative linguistic/English usage is generally used for the language (e.g. Squamish language). Anyway, there's quite a contrast between the Entiat and, for example, the Colvilles. "Colville tribe" would tend to refer to the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, and NB there was no historical "Colville people" in the singular sense; the Colville Reservation contains the remnants of various peoples, including the core Okanagan group; a Canadian example would be Cowichan peoples (vs Cowichan Tribes, which is a government). A further issue of concern is that there remain un-split articles where governments are covered on the same article as ethno history (e.g. Muckleshoot Tribe, I think). The prevalence of "tribe" in US English to mean band organizations tends against it being used for ethnographic peoples, like teh Entiat or other peoples who do not have tribal organizations (currently or in the past) or who are part of larger confederacies such as those at Colville and Grand Ronde....consistency in these matters has long been wanting, I just wanted to point out the discrepancies/issues.....i.e. of using "tribe" vs "people", an d also note that many sources might play loosey-goosey with "Nation", capitalized or otherwise (capitalized in Canada tends to mean a government, though poeple will still use it for e.g. the Nlaka'pamux Nation, but taht as a term formally excludes most of the Nlaka'pamux (Thompson) population because of its political overtones. One article title that for a long time has been needing resolution is Mohawk nation, small-n....Mohawk people and Mohawk (tribe) currently, I think, redirect there...NB "Mohawk Nation" is a government.....Skookum1 (talk) 07:28, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I don't know the details of most of these, so I'm sure I'm failing to correct a lot of them. I'm attempting to remove the designation "tribe" (at least in the title, if not often in the text) from articles that are about ethnicities/nations rather than actually about tribes of ethnicities/nations. If I leave the designation "tribe" for an independent ethnic group, like the Entiat, it's an error.

I've been reading capitalized "Tribe" as a govt (it is in dozens of articles), and lc "tribe" as a sub-ethnic group, like the 12 tribes of Israel or the Germanic tribes.

Could you do me the favor of taking a look at my user contributions, and letting me know which I got wrong? A list of new/current location → desired location would be great. I just moved Mohawk people. — kwami (talk) 07:38, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Here are the articles I've moved (or in a few cases maybe just edited today):

Acquackanonk tribe

Ais people

Apalachicola people

Bannock people

Biloxi people

Bitterroot Salish tribe

Cahokia tribe

Catawba people

Cathlamet tribe

Chatot people

Chelan tribe

Cheraw people

Chetco people

Colville tribe

Coso people

Doeg tribe

Entiat tribe

Erie people

Eufaula people

Great Basin peoples

Hackensack tribe

Ibi tribe

Iowa people

Kato people

Kaw people

Kichai people

Mayaca people

Miami people

Mohawk people

Mono people

Natchitoches people

Navesink tribe

Nespelem tribe

Niantic people

Omaha people

Oneida people

Onondaga people

Oswegatchie people

Otoe people

Ouachita poeple

Palus tribe

Pend d'Oreilles tribe

Peoria tribe

Piscataway tribe

Raritan tribe

Roanoke tribe

Rumachenanck tribe

Sanpoil tribe

Schaghticoke tribe

Shakori people

Shasta people

Tamaroa tribe

Tappan tribe

Tula people

Tuscarora people

Ute people

Vermilion tribe

Waxhaw tribe

Yazoo tribe

Yuki people

Yurok people

Zia people

Here are the ones on my list I haven't moved yet (just adding a 'p' for 'people', '-' for 'keep', etc. would be enough - you don't need to spell it out)

Androscoggin tribe →

Cathlamet (tribe) →

Chesapeake (tribe) →

Chickahominy (tribe) →

Chicora tribe →

Clackamas (tribe) →

Congaree (tribe) →

Coos (tribe) →

Cowlitz (tribe) →

Duwamish (tribe) →

Esopus tribe →

History of the Duwamish tribe →

Klickitat (tribe) →

Monacan (tribe) →

Multnomah (tribe) →

Nisqually (tribe) →

Nooksack (tribe) →

Patuxet tribe →

Pee Dee (tribe) →

Pocomoke Indian Tribe →

Puyallup (tribe) →

Rappahannock Tribe →

Rogue River (tribe) →

Sahewamish (tribe) →

Sammamish (tribe) →

Santee tribe →

Shoalwater Bay Tribe →

Siletz (tribe) →

Skokomish (tribe) →

Snohomish (tribe) →

Snoqualmie (tribe) →

Spirit Lake Tribe →

Squaxin Island Tribe →

Stillaguamish (tribe) →

Swinomish (tribe) →

Tillamook (tribe) →

Timpanog tribe →

Umatilla (tribe) →

Umpqua (tribe) →

Walla Walla (tribe) →

Warm Springs (tribe) →

There are also a few "X tribe"s that I've skipped over w/o change that aren't on this list; I can post them as well if you like. These are all listed somewhere under Category:Native American tribes by state, so they don't address Canada etc., and maybe some US peoples that didn't get listed by state. I can easily expand the search if you like; if I have your judgement to go on, I could do it quickly. — kwami (talk) 07:47, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Here's another to consider. I recently created Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. I opted for that name because that is what they call themselves--apparently both the people and the government. This whole topic of how best to title pages like this is tricky. So please change this page's name as well if it makes sense to. Pfly (talk) 15:50, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd stay with what you did, because that's a proper name for the government, not the common name of a people. — kwami (talk) 15:54, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Favour

Could you unlock Template:Countries of Asia? I wish to edit it per the argument I put forward here on the 19th which has received no response, which per WP:SILENCE I'm going to assume is consensus. Unfortunately, it was fully locked for some random reason two years ago, so I can't change it. If there's something else I should do now and you can't unlock per some policy, then it'd be could if you could just direct me to that. Thanks. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:35, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Done. Knocked down to 'semi'. — kwami (talk) 14:38, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Appreciated. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:41, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

More political balkan complications

Apparently the Republic Srpska considers Bosnian to be a dialect of the Croatian language. Also, Serb politicians have been using "Croatisms" (word of the day there). Funfunfun Chipmunkdavis (talk) 02:37, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, and "linguists" saying there should be a law against it—those are the loonies we're dealing with. Read on for more. — kwami (talk) 05:56, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused, I thought that Srpska would want Bosnian to be a form of Serbian. Maybe they're trying to purify the "Serbian language"? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:39, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Purer = smaller, but then smaller = purer. Good enough for the Repubs in the US. (Besides, that makes more "thems" to scare people with. And Srpska is probably more concerned with entrenching its de facto borders than trying to claim additional territory, since even Serbia no longer backs them up.) — kwami (talk) 06:47, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:INVOLVED on the topics of WP:ARBMAC area that need notification about ARBMAC

Hi, Kwamikagami. Has it occured to you that you're involved in the topics that are covered by WP:ARBMAC?
E.g,, here you've deleted {{citation needed}} on the article Serbo-Croatian. Was that difficult to insert the inline citation? You know, the page and the line that speaks about that? Kwamikagami, we need sources and citations, not honorable scouts word.
E.g., this change on article Croatian language is not the seeking consensus or compromise. In some parts, you've inserted wrong information (that the official language of Croatia is Serbo-Croatian). It never was.
Also you don't know the problem of Church Slavonic and its importance for the development of Slavic languages . Read Brozović's work, there's explanation there. If you like Britannica, why don't you read it? Britannica speaks explicitly and solely about Croatian Church Slavonic.
Kwamikagami, have you ever seen how many times does your name appears here with the words "(Reverted edits by (your opponent)...." "(Undid revision .... by (your opponent)". Kwamikagami, you're not right by default.
E.g., here. Your edit here on the article South Slavic languages is the example of rude vandalism. You deleted the whole referenced sections. You deleted the line about Kajkavian Ikavians, you deleted the info about New and Old Shtokavian accentuation. Your version is full of nonexisting terms (e.g., you deleted "East" from "East Herzegovina" - so which one is that "Herzegovina dialect"?; e.g. you invented "ikavian subdialect of Štokavian"...). Where were your sources for those deletions and where were sources for your inventions (WP:OR)?
E.g. the article Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. You have inserted your map that's your personal POV. Serbian user (PANONIAN) gave you reference that proves you wrong. You gave objection "the second objection is falsification of census results because map is made to reflect census results.".
You've also been involved on the template {{South Slavic languages sidebar}} . Bunch of reverts, unappropriate expressions in edit summaries , plus indefinite protection , false allegations of consensus (since users disagreed on that, see history).
Further, you've heavily WP:INVOLVED yourself in the article Croatian grammar. You've protected the article on your version indefinitely. You've been reverting the opponents' versions. See how many times your edits were "reverted edits by (your opponent)", "undid revision by (your opponent). You've ignored the argumentation on the talkpage Talk:Croatian grammar.
For engaging in articles that fall under the ruling of WP:ARBMAC, user Knepferle posted following notification of WP:ARBMAC . Only in your case, that diff would be somehow widened and it would sound like this:

• Please note that the article Croatian language, Serbo-Croatian language, Croatian grammar, South Slavic languages, Differences between standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian, {{South Slavic languages sidebar}} and other articles relating to the Balkans fall under the ruling of WP:ARBMAC. Note in particular Misplaced Pages:ARBMAC#Discretionary sanctions, which states

"Any uninvolved administrator may, on their own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict if that editor fails to adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages, the expected standards of behavior, or the normal editorial process. The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; restrictions on reverts; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project. Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to this decision."

Repeated blanket reversions, repeatedly and knowingly restoring material with large amounts of poor English and grammatical errors, and repeated introduction of material rejected by consensus all fall below the expected standards of behaviour at this project.

Admin Courcelles suggested me to file WP:AE. I'm not calling for revolution, arbitration, request for this/that... I've just wanted that you get the proper information, just as it has been hte case with any other involved user on those topics. Bye, Kubura (talk) 02:43, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Uh, do you have a point, or are you just trolling again? Sorry, I won't bite. — kwami (talk) 05:52, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

There's one born every minute

Were you aware of this? Note under the detailed description: "Source: Misplaced Pages". It even includes "free updates". --Taivo (talk) 20:19, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh yeah. They're in violation of copyright, aren't they? I love how the titles are obviously done by machine: there doesn't appear to be any human effort in them whatsoever. I've always wondered how many people actually buy those things. — kwami (talk) 20:23, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Zulu

Hi. Now that you've moved Zulu to Zulu people and moved the disambiguation page to Zulu, please don't forget to WP:FIXDABLINKS. At a minimum, it would have been an excellent idea to have changed the link at the top of the disambiguation page so that it pointed to the article you moved. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 10:20, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I did. The minimum, at least. Sorry about the others.

BTW, a huge number of the links to Zulu are for the language, not the people, which is why the MOS advices the bare root being a dab page. — kwami (talk) 15:12, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

frr vs gv

I'm probably just not getting it - why is this robot forever changing the ISO1 code for Manx Gaelic to the ISO2/3 code for North Frisian? Akerbeltz (talk) 10:25, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

They're separate changes. The Manx iw was redundant with gv:Gaelg. — kwami (talk) 15:08, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Linguistic legitimacy

Is this covered anywhere else in Misplaced Pages besides the article on famous phrase "a language is a dialect ..."? There are some more general sources, e.g. Tijfo098 (talk) 12:24, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not aware of a specific article, but it is discussed at varieties of Chinese and varieties of Arabic, among other places. There's currently a rather bizarre dispute going on as to whether Cantonese really has its own writing system.

The 'fun' one that's going on right now is Serbo-Croatian, where Serbian and Croatian aren't even distinct dialects, yet the 'dialects' of Croatian are arguably distinct languages. — kwami (talk) 13:14, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Chinguacousy Secondary School

Hey thats nice of you to lock Chinguacousy Secondary School to protect it from vandalism but the information is out of date. I'd like to make note that Russell Peters attended Chinguacousy in grades 9 & 10. Also the current Principal is Karen Hobbins, not Jan Courtin. Sources: school website & attendance at the institution.Shamandalie27 (talk) 21:54, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Your choice: I can unprotect it, leaving it open to vandalism, or you can wait three days until your account is considered established, and edit it regardless of it being protected. — kwami (talk) 03:45, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Alright I didn't know about the 3 day thing. 174.93.123.246 (talk) 03:47, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

IPA-bg

Dear Kwamikagami, I do not think that your redirect IPA-bg => IPA-mk is appropriate, both in principle and as particular application (e.g in Tryavna Peak). Apcbg (talk) 12:12, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

We were simply using IPA-mk for Bulgarian, and actually most Bulgarian pronunciations still use that template. It makes no difference to the reader, but if you want to make a dedicated IPA-bg template to do the same thing, knock yourself out. — kwami (talk) 12:35, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Done. Apcbg (talk) 13:35, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Consonant templates

I caught your message at the help desk and was just having a look when I saw you'd fixed it. But notice that your templates have placed the Alveolar approximant article into Category:Consonant templates, so something must be wrong with the template definitions. I think the "category" call needs to be hidden inside <noinclude> ... </noinclude> - see Help:Noinclude -- John of Reading (talk) 17:30, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I got that mixed up with the opposite of 'onlyinclude'. Will fix. — kwami (talk) 17:32, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

In case it becomes controversial later on, I approve of the prose templates you've recently made and incorporated into article space. — Ƶ§œš¹ 18:16, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Shouldn't be a problem, I don't think. In some cases I'm adding text specific to a single article or not using a template at all; we can expand on that if some of the generalities aren't appropriate. (Please fix or let me know if I overlook something.) — kwami (talk) 18:19, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I've removed our claim that nasals are 'central'. That may be an assumption to get them to fit into some binary model, but the statement is physically meaningless. Likewise, my /f/ and /v/ are lateral, not central, but they're often lumped in as 'central', so I removed the claim from labials as well. — kwami (talk) 19:39, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

{{IPAlink}} accepts unnamed 2nd parameter for "showsymbol="

All three templates now also take a 2nd unnamed parameter for "showsymbol=". I have documented it, without a preference, both inputs are accepted. Please drop a note when something strange appears. -DePiep (talk) 11:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! — kwami (talk) 15:00, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

re: Formatting IPA (Cape Verdean Creole)

Instead of going on in an edition war, I’ d rather discuss with you first.

You did remove the slashes, but it seems that it is an error in formatting. Another user has noticed that, and corrected it. I can understand the usage of the template, but what I don’t understand is why you are insistingly putting asterisks before the original words. Is it some rule defined here in Misplaced Pages?

Thanks

Ten Islands (talk) 11:19, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't clear to me that those were the original words, only a comparison with what the creole is not. Asterisks denote two things: reconstructions, and non-existent forms. You could argue that the forms I added the asterisks to are either. Also, slashes would maintain that the forms are phonemic in creole, and I didn't know if they were. — kwami (talk) 15:07, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Templates {{sibilant}} etc.

Hi. I'm looking at these and thinking they're prose templates, i.e., violations of WP:Template namespace. Your thoughts? --Pi zero (talk) 13:43, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

You mean the line "Templates should not masquerade as article content in the main article namespace; instead, place the text directly into the article." We have prose & content templates all over the place, like our consonant and vowel charts. AFAIK no-one pays much attention to that guideline, at least not in such a literal sense. (That template is transcluded in 9 articles, {{voiced}} in 63.) — kwami (talk) 15:00, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

If you check the related talk page, there is currently an ongoing discussion regarding a reword of that very line. We ought to chime in on the matter. — Ƶ§œš¹ 16:26, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Chimed. — kwami (talk) 17:05, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Folk etymology

I am having some difficulty with an editor who does not seem to understand or accept that Folk etymology is a well defined term in historical linguistics. Can you recommend to what discussion board I should take this matter if it becomes necessary? I will watch this space, you can respond to me here. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 04:40, 3 November 2010 (UTC)