User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 16

Barnstars I, Ling.Nut award this very overdue Linguist's barnstar to Kwamikagami. Thanks for making the Internet not suck. Thanks for taking an interest in the language families of South America - they really need a hand! ·Maunus·ƛ· 08:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC) I, Ikiroid, award this Barnstar to Kwami for helping me with effectively editing language pages. 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 Serendipodous 10:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC) The Graphic Designer's Barnstar For your wonderful moon mass charts, I offer the Graphic designer's barnstar. Serendipodous 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. Serendipodous 09:40, 19 September 2008 (UTC) The Original Barnstar Presented for your creation of the Malagasy IPA pages and your tireless transcription efforts. Thank you! Lemurbaby (talk) 11:44, 19 November 2010 (UTC) The Graphic Designer's Barnstar For your contributions to File:IPA chart 2005.png (better seen in the English Wikipedia logs since the move to Commons). In taking linguistics courses as an undergraduate, having a printout-size and easy-to-find IPA reference was indispensable. I will probably be finding printouts of this file mixed in with my college papers for decades to come; that's just how often I used it. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 22:31, 7 December 2010 (UTC) The Tireless Contributor Barnstar I, Stevey7788, hereby present you the Tireless Contributor Barnstar for your tremendously prolific work on languages and linguistics. Excellent articles, wonderful images, and impressive contributions overall! — Stevey7788 (talk) 23:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC) The Editor's Barnstar For your continued good work in articles on languages. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 00:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC) The Teamwork Barnstar I hope the script story will have a happy end :-) Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 21:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC) The Original Barnstar Hi there, I noticed that you edited an article that I created (Chay Shegog) and edited the pronunciation. I am a Shegog myself. I'm not bothered about your change at all. The emphasis is how you wrote it so shi-GOG. I noticed that you have done some stuff related to American Indians on Wikipedia. Are you of Native American descent? I've done some research and there is some evidence to suggest that the name Shegog is taken from zhigaag (so like Chicago with two g's and no 'o') which means skunk in the Ojibwe language. But all Shegog's I know pronounce it with a short -og similar to dog. Thanks, Shegan AGirl1191 (talk) 04:16, 6 March 2012 (UTC) The Tireless Contributor Barnstar Thanks for your recent run of newly-created language articles, and for your efforts to improve the encyclopedia. Northamerica1000(talk) 17:28, 17 March 2012 (UTC) The Original Barnstar thank for contributing us... Liansanga (talk) 00:23, 8 June 2012 (UTC) The Admin's Barnstar For your past excellent service as Administrator, and a sad reminder that sometimes ARBCOM can blow it - big time. HammerFilmFan (talk) 01:33, 6 October 2012 (UTC) Guardian of Hamari Boli Most sincere gratitude for your invaluable contributions to Hindi-Urdu related articles on English Wikipedia. Forever indebted to you -and wikipedia of course- for telling it like it is.. Amazing how you never gave up and went thru all the troubles dealing with zealots. Bravo! You're one of the inspirations that led to the genesis of http://www.HamariBoli.com edge.walker (talk) 22:01, 11 August 2012 (UTC) The Instructor's Barnstar This Barnstar is awarded to Wikipedians who have performed stellar work in the area of instruction & help for other editors. For your contributions to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style and especially for your contributions to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting. Moreover, in providing examples of how to implemented the Manual in text editing and your great cooperation with me! Magioladitis (talk) 22:54, 9 November 2012 (UTC) The Resilient Barnstar For your WP rules following Saraikistan (talk) 18:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC) The Barnstar of Diligence For your linguistic contributions. We will carry on this professional discussion later because I will be off now. Regards Maria0333 (talk) 07:59, 7 February 2013 (UTC) The Original Barnstar For all-round good work, but especially this edit. Keep it up! Green Giant (talk) 09:12, 8 January 2014 (UTC) All Around Amazing Barnstar Dear Kwamikagami, thank you for all of your amazing contributions to language related articles. Your contributions are making a difference here on Wikipedia! Keep up the good work! With regards, AnupamTalk 21:25, 9 April 2014 (UTC) The LGBT Barnstar For your work over at Public opinion of same-sex marriage in the United States, the article looks vastly improved and I am happy to see there was an agreement made on the results. =) Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:46, 25 April 2014 (UTC) The Brilliant Idea Barnstar Good job Sit1101 (talk) 01:53, 30 December 2014 (UTC) The Multiple Barnstar These are just some barnstars for some of the many amazing things you do here on Wikipedia, I don't know what this site would do without you. Abrahamic Faiths (talk) 21:06, 27 April 2015 (UTC) The Original Barnstar For working to help close RfCs and reduce the backlog. Wugapodes (talk) 00:54, 5 August 2015 (UTC) The Tireless Contributor Barnstar For great, expeditious and lynx-eyed reviewing and correction of all Aboriginal articles,Nishidani (talk) 16:37, 14 February 2019 (UTC) The Papua New Guinean Barnstar of National Merit Thank you for your many years of tireless work on articles of Papuan languages! Here's something to add to your long list of barnstars. (Although admittedly, this is just for "East New Guinea Highlands languages" and other Papuan languages on the eastern half of the island.) — Sagotreespirit (talk) 09:56, 20 April 2020 (UTC) The Original Barnstar Because you do an incredible amount of good work, and I am more or less in awe at how much you know. Also, I think you do not have enough barnstars. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 05:06, 22 August 2020 (UTC) The Special Barnstar For creating the Tyap language article. Thanks! Kambai Akau (talk) 20:22, 14 September 2020 (UTC) The Mathematics Barnstar For getting Kaktovik numerals to good article status. Thank you Akrasia25 (talk) 18:22, 6 March 2021 (UTC) The Reviewers Award By the authority vested in me by myself it gives me great pleasure to present you with this award in recognition of the thorough, detailed and actionable reviews you have carried out at FAC. This work is very much appreciated. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:33, 18 September 2021 (UTC) The Editor's Barnstar Thanks for your tireless editing and ability to recognize the nuance most miss, do not understand, or fail to research regarding parliamentary law vis-à-vis a supreme court’s jurisdiction specially regarding Nepal Quaerens-veritatem (talk) 06:10, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
The colubrid Telescopus semiannulatus in an acacia, central Tanzania.		This user is one of the 40 most active English Wikipedians of all time. This user is a former administrator on the English Wikipedia (verify). Quotes: Only an evil person would eat baby soup. To shew that there is no tautology, no vain repetition of one and the same thing therein. In this country we treat our broads with respect. Words of the day: anti-zombie-fungus fungus

Macedonian

OK, I will remove it. You cannot join them together since it is not the case as Serbo-Croatian or the Scandinavian. --MacedonianBoy (talk) 11:15, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Typo there: "of the Scandinavian"? I don't follow. Macedonian-Bulgarian is a lot like Scandinavian. — kwami (talk) 11:19, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Ups, sorry, yes it is typo. My point is that Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin and Croatian are usually classified as one Serbo-Croatian. BTW, you have to delete from the list the languages that are bellow 3 million. I gave you sources that Macedonian is spoken by more than 3 million, but you follow Etnologue. Happy New Year and regards--MacedonianBoy (talk) 11:22, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Can we add Macedonian in the list "Additional languages" or "Other languages frequently cited as having more than 3 million speaker"? Here we can add more languages that are often cited having more than 3 million speakers. --MacedonianBoy (talk) 11:26, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

The "Other languages frequently cited" group are all languages with something exceptional going on: widely spoken as an L2 (Swahili), disagreement as to scope (Tibetan), undocumented number of speakers (CSL), etc. (If Pakistani SL is the same language as Indian SL, then it probably has more than 3M, but if not, then it's under 3M.) There are only a few languages listed there, not the dozens which may or may not be over 3M. Macedonian would fit if what you meant was that it fit as long as we were including Bulgarian, but in that case we would just list it with Bulgarian, as we had.

The "Additional languages" group are left over from when the list attempted to include all languages with 1M speakers (based on an older version of Ethnologue). That is a work-in-progress section: those languages should either be moved up into the other sections, or removed from the article. They're either languages I never got around to finishing, or ones I couldn't decide what to do with, because they're not straightforward (what should we count under Hmong? whether it qualifies depends on a rather arbitrary answer). Macedonian wouldn't fit: if we've decided that it doesn't include Bulgarian, then its scope is clear, so it's not like Hmong, and our source states that it is well short of 3M.

As for why we follow a single source, it was to avoid the unending arguments over whose language is more important. Huge fight over whether Spanish or English should be #2, for example; under different definitions Hindi would be much higher in the list; and French and Portuguese sources are all over the place, not even close to agreement. There's a potential fight for every language whose speakers have a disagreement with their neighbors, which is probably most of them (Persian, Uzbek, Azeri, Turkish, Kurdish, etc. etc.) all able to find sources to push their language up higher in the list, but those sources can't be used equally for all of the languages, which Ethnologue can. It's not always a very accurate source, but it's the only universal source. — kwami (talk) 12:04, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:TITLE

From the archives...

The discussion is scattered all over the place. I don't see consensus; perhaps I'm just missing it? What I am hearing (perhaps mistakenly so) is "consensus except for all the wrong people who disagree with it". Can you show me where this was decided? <snip> — kwami (talk) 00:43, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, consensus favoring V1 over V2 was clearly established, and I've already pointed this out. Have you looked at this?

When the change in meaning was realized and first raised for discussion by me, here, over a week ago, consensus (measured in terms of arguments made) unanimously favored restoring the V1 wording, as clearly shown here: WT:AT#RFC on Recognizability guideline wording, where nine editors explains why V1 is better/preferred, and no one even articulated anything in support of V2 (despite claims of ram-rodding, etc., the section remains open to this today for such input, and still there is nothing).

Thanks, and happy new year! --Born2cycle (talk) 18:45, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I still don't see consensus. What I do see are some people agreeing with you, and others complaining that you're quoting selectively and calling that consensus. You say that there are no substantial arguments against, meaning that all the arguments against can be ignored, but that means you're playing prosecutor and judge, which is a COI, or at least can be easily mistaken for a COI. Usually when I bring up a point for discussion, it's not me who decides the outcome. True, many of the cons are not counter-arguments so much as requests for further discussion by people who have yet to make up their mind, but that's reasonable when dealing with an important policy decision. And with the discussion broken up and repeated in various places, with some participants being restricted to one or another, it's very hard to tell who wants what and why. Perhaps the cons are all being pig-headed and edit warring because they didn't get their way, but it's hard to tell. Anyway, I wasn't trying to judge whether or not there was consensus, or which way it went, but wanted to stop the edit warring until there was consensus that there was consensus.

You link to your summaries of the consensus, which have been contested by people who weren't even involved. Can you link to the consensus itself? Where people said 'support' or 'opposed' and gave their reasons why? Though I really don't want to be the judge of this, I just wanted to throw some cold water on it until it got sorted out. — kwami (talk) 20:30, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Do you see an argument in favor of V2 over V1 or not? If so, what is it? If not, do you agree that since there are arguments in favor of V1, and no argument in favor of V2, that consensus supports V1?

Just read that section,WT:AT#RFC on Recognizability guideline wording, and the section above it. They're both full of nine different people's clearly stated statements in favor of V1. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:23, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if there are or not, because I don't know where all of hte discussion is. I do know that some people have asked for further discussion, that you all deliberate before making a policy change, have expressed concern that the old wording could lead to obscure jargon in titles, and accuse you of trying to shut down the discussion. At least one editor who hasn't even expressed an opinion on the wording has echoed the last point. — kwami (talk) 01:00, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I just told you where all the discussion is. Did you look, or not? Did you see nine people making statements in favor of V1 or not? If you're not willing to even read the relevant sections, why put yourself into this?

Yes, Tony, Noetica and Dicklyon all complain about a variety of things, but none of them has argued that V2 is better than V1 (again, if they have, what's the argument?). Nor has anyone else.

The word "jargon" does not exist on the page WT:AT, so I don't know what you're talking about when you say "some people ...have expressed concern that the old wording could lead to obscure jargon in titles". You don't seem to be looking at this very carefully, nor objectively. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:41, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

You cannot possibly claim objectivity on this issue (you didn't ever explain yourself above), and yet you're conveniently locking the page at the version you favored last time, even though three different editors have changed it to the previous version, and only one, Noetica, has changed it three times. Really? --Born2cycle (talk) 05:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure you're aware of the dispute resolution process on WP, so I won't explain it to you. If another uninvolved admin feels that I've missed the obvious consensus, then they're welcome to revert to whichever version they choose. — kwami (talk) 05:27, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

A-Hmao

Thanks for contributing the A-Hmao article. I'm unable to find a reference to this being the language for which the Pollard script was developed, though. I can't find a mention of it in the Ethnologue entry. Could you supply a source? Thanks! Waitak (talk) 17:17, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I see E only notes that it is written in Pollard. I'm not finding the sources I was using last night, but I found another that I'll cite in the article. — kwami (talk) 04:21, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

chongzuo languages

The article entitled Chongzuo languages has several problems that need to be addressed - the title is in appropriate. "Chongzuo languages" correctly refers to the languages spoken in Chongzuo, Guangxi, China these include at least Zhuang and Pinghua . Whilst Pittayaporn (2009) is quoted this does not use the term "Chongzuo languages" . The article is in fact about the C group of Thai languages, which we all admit would be a strange title however tshere does not exist to the best of my knowledge another published term for this group of languages. Furthermore this is a designation, which the author himself calls both provisional and tentative. Ｔhe article is a stub because it refers to a concept found only in one thesis, it would be best merged into an article on Pittayaporn (2009) or some aspect the Thai languages. One significance of Pittayaporn (2009) is he builds upon the the work of Gedney and Li Fanggui an article that refers to the theories of all three would be excellent. Other points Zhang et al(1999) is again misrepresented in the article. Please also read the achieved comment on the same article please. Johnkn63 (talk) 02:15, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that would be good. I don't think I have access, though, so if you could expand that would be a help.

When I have time I will do what I can, Zhang 1999 is actually largely a summary of some of the survey work done in the 1950's Johnkn63 (talk) 10:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

As for the name, yeah, that is a problem. Maybe "Group C Tai languages" would be the best title. However, Zhuang and Pinghua do not form a language family, so the fact that they are both spoken in Chongzuo is not really relevant. You could use the same reasoning to argue that many other languages and language families should be renamed: The Chinese languages are not the only languages spoken in China, the Atlantic languages are not the only languages spoken along the Atlantic, the Iranian languages are not the only languages spoken in Iran, etc.

What about the 2ary names, 'Chongzuo Tai languages' or 'Chongzuo Zhuang languages'? Would that help? — kwami (talk) 05:23, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

One problem with using Chongzuo in the title is that 2 of the three places are not in Chongzuo, furthermore languages being in the same Pittayaporn grouping does not mean that they are mutually intelligible. Johnkn63 (talk) 10:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, mutual intelligibility is completely unclear.

I don't recall where I saw the name 'Chongzuo' used for all three. Not all Germanic languages are in Germany, either, nor Indic languages in India, so I didn't think much of them not all being in Chongzuo. More that they were simply named after an exemplar. — kwami (talk) 16:03, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

But the point is when writing for wikipedia one needs to be faithful to existing conventions, the phrase Chongzuo Zhuang/Language/Tai already has an existing convention, the current title is at odds with that convention. Even the thesis cited as the source uses that existing convention. In the future someone may well come up with a better collective name for 'Group C Tai languages' in some publication at that time the title of the article could be that. The groupings are provisional, even Pittayaporn may in his later work change them, perhaps that is the reason he did not give more explicit names. Johnkn63 (talk) 23:50, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Re File:World_homosexuality_laws.svg

I responded to you on on my Commons talkpage - htonl (talk) 11:32, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I've uploaded a new version of File:World homosexuality laws.svg, again using CSS to control the colours. I believe it fixes the problem with subnational units that you found in the previous CSS-based version. Can you confirm if the new version displays properly for you? Thanks, Htonl (talk) 18:46, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it displays correctly now. — kwami (talk) 12:39, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Great, thanks for checking. - htonl (talk) 20:43, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I've fixed the problem with Mexico - it was a stupid mistake I had made while inserting the other changes. - htonl (talk) 21:27, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Proto-Esperanto

Hi, you just reverted my edit on Proto-Esperanto saying "I believe ĝ is attested". That might well be, but I doubt it, as later that same phoneme was expressed by Zamenhof as <dź>. I'd love to read more on Proto-Esperanto, so if you could dig out a source that states that Zamenhof used the letter <ĝ> in his Proto-Esperanto, I'd appreciate it. It would be a good addition to the article as well. Or maybe you remember, what made you believe that <ĝ> is in fact attested somewhere. I think this short song/poem is the only thing left of it? Thanks in advance. — N-true (talk) 12:55, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

That was taken directly from Kiselman (2010). He says that all phonemes are attested apart from ĉ ĥ ĵ ŝ ŭ (w is used for v), and that all letters are attested apart from six, ĉ ĥ ĵ ŝ ŭ v (he specifies that they are six in §5.3). But he says the others 'aperas en la himno', which ĝ obviously doesn't. (W only appears in the name Lingwe Uniwersala, AFAICT.) So I think you're right, that would appear to be an oversight, esp. given the dź in a later version. — kwami (talk) 20:11, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks! Also for naming the source. Maybe I'll find the time to read more on that topic. — N-true (talk) 20:31, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Fixing a Move

Kwami. A little housekeeping move is needed. The Talk page for Jordanian Arabic is at Talk:Jordanian Levantine. The Talk page needs to be moved to match the article. Thanks. --Taivo (talk) 10:45, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

done — kwami (talk) 10:48, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Ganga -> Ganga

Please do not mechanically replace Ganga with Ganges, in many Hinduism articles Ganga refers to both the goddess as well as the river and the goddess is not called Ganges in English. eg. in Ardhanarishvara, Ganga refers to both the goddess as well as the river. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:42, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't catch that one. — kwami (talk) 17:50, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

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Tancredi (2010 [2009]) ref: http://www.google.com/

then: url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=13&ved=0CCwQFjACOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.cambridge.org%2Farticle_S1743921310001717&ei=P7wFT5btC4n9sQLkpMmQCg&usg=AFQjCNEPgt0xnS-QeNJJ2PG7_lAu3xuBqw

& web (modified 27 June 2008)

Coupla things

I'm currently planning on staying out of the discussion on naming Pollard script, but I agree with your call on having it remain as is. If you feel that more input is required, send up a flare, and I'll chime in. Also, I noticed your interest in Esperanto. I'm also an avid avocational language geek, and wondered, cxu vi ankauxe estas esperantisto? Waitak (talk) 18:26, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Ekesperantadisto. Dank', mi atentigos se trovigxas kverelemo. — kwami (talk) 18:35, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Korea

I saw your changes at S. Korean provinces. Maybe the items in Category:Provinces of North Korea should use the same format. Dankon. Principe Azul (talk) 19:19, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Done. The leads needed changing as well, as the English did not match the Korean. — kwami (talk) 02:37, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Great. I adjusted Template:Regions and administrative divisions of North Korea, and changed lead for Kangwon as you have done with the others. Now only the categories remain in need for renaming. Principe Azul (talk) 07:15, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I think s.o. semi-automates that. Or at least I've often seen cats get bot-updated after page moves. — kwami (talk) 07:41, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Macedonian language

Greetings. There's a SPA pushing an agenda at Macedonian language. He's been reverted by two different editors now and has reverted three times himself. You might want to keep an eye on it. Thanks. --Taivo (talk) 11:51, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Khoekhoegowab

Shouldn't the text quoted from a given source remain as is appears in that source? -- Aflis (talk) 14:03, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it should, but if there are typographic errors, they should be followed by [sic].

Also, we note that modern orthography coopts the voicing distinction of consonants to indicate tone. Do you have a text that illustrates that?

Wow, that's not even close to the original text anymore. Since the orthography is obsolete, I think it would be easier to just get another text.

Okay, not very good, but I found something. The earlier text would be better, if we had it in modern orthography. — kwami (talk) 21:22, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

That's ok with me. I dont speak Khoekhoegowab and thus wouldn't know about the questions of orthography you are raising. I simply found a text in the article, unsourced, got the source from someone (don't remember who) and put the reference in the article. I then reacted to your changing the text without giving an explanation. Replacing it for the reason you are giving appears to be a good solution. -- Aflis (talk) 22:19, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Old Hungarian

Thanks for keeping an eye out. -- Evertype·✆ 11:21, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, thought I'd taken care of the OH alphabet article as well. Maybe the save didn't go through. — kwami (talk) 01:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Hmongic

Unfortunately, Ratliff (2010) doesn't include classifications of Younuo and Wunai.

Ratliff considers the Hmongic branch to be Miao. Hmong would be a macrolanguage of group of closely related languages within the Hmongic branch. Pa-hng would not be Hmong, even though it's within the Hmongic branch. Also Ratliff's "Hmong" does not correspond to any ISO codes, since the Ethnologue classification tree for the Hmong-Mien language family was based off Matisoff's tree.

Similarly, Mienic = Yao, but Mien is just one language within that branch.

Hope that helps. — Stevey7788 (talk) 23:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I think we can probably go with Matisoff then when Ratliff doesn't have data. — kwami (talk) 23:53, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Yongnan languages Title

Yongnan languages is a title which I think will need to be changed. In short the problem is similar to that mentioned elsewhere, however the case is even clearer. Namely (1) the article quotes Pittayaporn who uses the term Tai languages group D for the content of this article, not Yongnan languages. All sources I have read use Yongnan languages, or similar to refer to the ISO 639-3 zyn . In this case there can sometimes be confusion with the Yongnan lect as both are abbreviated in Chinese to the same thing. As the issue affects several articles the solution is an agreed naming convention for Pittayaporn's branches. Ｏne solution would be would be a naming convention of ‘Group A/B/.../R/S Tai languages’. In the case of 'Group N Tai languages' a direct link to Northern Ｔai would make sense, where the difference is only Ｗuming Zhuang, however the other grouping are present seem to be unique to this one thesis and it may be hard to link directly to groupings in other literature. The principle here is the question of attested sources and that Wikipedia is not the place for original research. Whilst such a naming convention is a little cumbersome it would be both in line with wikipedia policy and allow for the creation of all the 16 outstanding branches if so desired. Of course variations on a theme 'Branch A/B/.. Ｔai languages' , 'Tai languages group A/B/C ...' would also meet such requirements.Johnkn63 (talk) 00:55, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Old Turkic script

.. Proto-Sinaitic

.... Phoenician

...... Aramaic

........ Syriac

.......... Sogdian??? (controversial)

............ Old Turkic script

Hello Kwamikagami,

well, I think A.S. Amanjolov is completely right. Most researchers and philologs etc. agree with the currently constructed theory of writings systems, you see above. There is also strong connection with Aramaic alphabet and more or less Futhark. But if you want, we can change Amanjolov's words into more neutral form? What would you say?

Cheers!

Tirgil34 (talk) 10:43, 20 January 2012 (CET)

I think the question is over the reliability of Amanjolov as a source. Also, you're claiming that it derives from cuneiform? Or do you mean Egyptian hieroglyphics? (The wording is too ambiguous to tell.) I think we'd need confirmation by other researchers. — kwami (talk) 18:14, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I understand, I will search for more confirmation by other researchers. Furthermore next time I will word it more precise and more specific. About Amanjolov: I think he is quiet qualified for this as source, just convince yourself: Biography--Tirgil34 (talk) 23:16, 26 January 2012 (CET) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.143.41.82 (talk)

Tirgil34

I can understand reverting this [1] if the reason was copyvio, but why did you revert it? See [2]. I agree the edits referencing an iUniverse book and Mankind Quarterly were bad. Could be just ignorance about our sourcing policy.Dougweller (talk) 05:58, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The user made some very biased edits, and I thought it would be best if all were taken to talk, since they were all on a similar topic. — kwami (talk) 16:00, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for misunderstanding, I will work on it to present a new more completely description of it. Tirgil34 (talk) 22:08, 10 January 2012 (MEZ)

User account

You can now reach me at my user account. I will keep this post brief since I have else to do. No one opposes the self-evident fact that Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian are mutually intelligible, something which has been continuously stated in all articles. The highly subjective issue is rather the name previously given to these languages (i.e. Serbo-Croatian) implying that this language is in origin exclusively the linguistic entity of Serbs and Croats. This unfortunate event is however not difficult to grasp given the biased constitution of a undemocratic nation we all liked to call Yugoslavia; alike a cradle for genocide and grave breach of human rights.During the week I will make sure to pick up some scientific, contemporary, literature on the subject sure to substantiate my changes and improve the article segment as a whole. I am frankly not satisfied with Mr. Blasczviesczsiscszsscis's school work cited in the opening lines of the Bosnian language page. I expect all of you to maintain a civilized tone: manners which have already been compromised on the discussion of Bosnian language. I will come to that later on that page. MarcRey (talk) 08:13, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

First of all, even in English the name predates the founding the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. These constant claims that it's a Communist plot are ill informed. Second, it's the common name for the language in English, and there's nothing offensive about it in English. Until another term takes over, our naming policy requires that we keep the article where it is. — kwami (talk) 08:17, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Stop your edit warring

Now you're simply being stubborn and unscientific, Kwami, and you know it. Discuss on the Talk Page. You're edit warring and you know it. Threatening me with a block when you are participating in the same activity without reasonable discussion is simply hypocritical. Read WP:BRD. You made a change, I changed it, but instead of discussion to consensus you simply reverted back to your unacceptable edit. --Taivo (talk) 11:36, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. We go by sources, not by what you imagine the truth is. Blanking sourced info that you don't like is not acceptable behaviour. If you have a source to the contrary, or a critical review of the source I gave, then let's have it. Otherwise let the experts speak about their field without your OR. — kwami (talk) 11:41, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Changing "two" to "a handful" is not "blanking", it is being honest with linguistic reality. I've added multiple sources that show more than "two". --Taivo (talk) 11:49, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Evidently you did not bother to read them. The languages they described (back in the 30s) are extinct. (Actually, one is an extinct dialect of a language we've already counted.) I'm tempted to report you for violating 3RR, but will give you some time to remember that you're a linguist and to read what you cited. — kwami (talk) 11:54, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

"POV"? LOLOLOLOLOLOL. --Taivo (talk) 11:52, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

And now you're just being an asshole. Grow up. Or get some sleep, if that's what the problem is. (Try not to *be* Randy.) — kwami (talk) 11:54, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

No, Kwami, I'm not being the asshole. You are simply pushing your single source POV to the exclusion of linguistic sensibility and to the exclusion of other reliable sources (which I've cited in the article). That's not POV. You got your feelings hurt when I pointed out that such linguistic claims are not reasonable and then you got stubborn about it and refused to recognize that you were being unreasonable about it. I've got sources in the article, the wording is linguistically acceptable (although I'm still uncomfortable with putting any numbers), but there's not a POV issue at all. The only POV is that you refuse to accept that you're wrong about insisting on one source to the exclusion of linguistic reality and linguistic uncertainty. --Taivo (talk) 12:00, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Randy, you apparently don't understand your sources. They don't demonstrate anything except the pitfalls of engaging in OR. It would be one thing if we didn't have a source thats treat the matter directly, but we do. — kwami (talk) 12:04, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

You clearly don't understand WP:RANDY, but I'll ignore that. Your single-minded obsession with a single source is ridiculous and not firmly based on scientific reality or scientific reasonableness in expression. I've given you plenty of reason to gently question the absolutism of Miller's statement. I'm not asking to remove her as a source, I'm not asking for you to personally doubt her veracity. She has her reasons for stating "two", but unless you're putting her reasons in the article for why she selected the number 2, then stating it categorically as a fixed universal fact is disingenuous. There are all kinds of reasons why her number might be different than other numbers, that's why it's more encyclopedic to say something like "fewer than a half dozen" rather than categorically taking one possible number, fixing our eyes on it, and not accepting any other possibilities. And unless you specifically state that you're excluding recently extinct languages, then that "2" is also misleading. Does Miller specifically exclude extinct languages? You cannot make that assumption unless she specifically states that. --Taivo (talk) 12:24, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Not a single source. As I've said, you can find equivalent statements in other sources; this is just one that I happened to read the other day so it was easy to track down. (And I hope you don't really take Ruhlen as a source for anything.)

Quote, "The bilabial click occurs only in the related Tuu languages !Xóõ (Traill 1985) and N|uu (Miller et al. 2009a), and in the Ju-ǂHoan language ǂHoan (Bell and Collins 2001). Other languages with a bilabial click, such as |Xam, are now extinct."

Note the present tense, which is also used in this article.

If you like, I can get sources like yours to support a claim that there are 1 to 4 members of the Basque language family. Being unduly imprecise isn't scientific either. If you truly think being inflexible when the other person is demonstrably wrong is inappropriate, I'll remind you of that the next time you're arguing over whether Croatian is really related to Serbian. — kwami (talk) 12:36, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

So you've missed the point. My enumeration precisely matches Miller's comment--that there are more than three languages including the recently extinct languages for which we have evidence. The way you've worded the comment in the article implies an absolutist claim that there are and always were only three languages. I wouldn't have a problem with something like, "two other living languages and at least two recently extinct languages", because that's exactly what I've said and what Traill said and the truth of the matter. The "present tense" is simply not sufficient since linguists don't always make such a careful distinction in their writing and we can't expect readers to make such a careful distinction. It also obfuscates that fact that it really isn't "three only", but "three survivors and a few others that we've recently lost." It falsely exaggerates the scarcity of the segments. --Taivo (talk) 12:44, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

No, Taivo, it's present tense, not a gnomic statement. "There are" does not mean "there always have been". We can say "The US has 50 states" without edit warring over it because it didn't use to have 50. The statement here was factually correct and not misleading to anyone who paid attention to the verb "is". Yes, we can indeed add the truth of the matter: if we understand what it from our sources, we can word it to avoid being misleading. And it hardly exaggerates the scarcity: /ʘ/ has become more scarce since those languages went extinct. Noting that they went extinct does not make it less scarce. Adding a statement about them is fine, but the argument that they still "are" around is silly. — kwami (talk) 13:16, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

And Ruhlen isn't blanketly a bad source. His source for the Xekwi phonemic inventory I cited is the Current Trends in Linguistics article (volume 7, page 415). --Taivo (talk) 13:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

move req

Kwami, could you move blood-brain barrier to blood–brain barrier for the obvious reason? --JorisvS (talk) 15:32, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Nasal

Template:Nasal has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Night of the Big Wind _talk 16:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Oral-nasal

Template:Oral-nasal has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Night of the Big Wind _talk 16:09, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Burmese diphthongs

Hi Kwami, I've finally been able to confirm that Burmese diphthongs (which occur only in closed syllables anyway) close to near-close vowels, so if you could get AWB to change all remaining instances of "iʔ", "uʔ", "iɴ" and "uɴ" to "ɪʔ", "ʊʔ", "ɪɴ", and "ʊɴ" wherever {{IPA-my}} is invoked, that would be great! Thanks! Angr (talk) 10:06, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay. Started. — kwami (talk) 20:48, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I removed some extraneous tone marks from the lead of Burma. You might want to verify they weren't supposed to be on other syllables.

If diphthongs only occur in closed syllables, what's going on at Palaung people (lead)? — kwami (talk) 21:38, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

BTW, I placed a move request for Yangon → Rangoon, since we use 'Burma' on WP. — kwami (talk) 22:10, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Good luck with that. I seem to remember a previous discussion where it was decided that "Yangon" is more common in English than "Myanmar" is, so that people are content to keep the articles at Yangon and Burma. I'll check out the other articles you mentioned above. Angr (talk) 22:27, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

What happened at Palaung people is that since [o] and [oʊ] are allophones of a single phoneme, the monophthong occurring in open syllables and the diphthong in closed ones, people aren't always careful about distinguishing them. I've corrected it to [lùmjó]. Angr (talk) 22:35, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Should [iŋɡ] be chanɡed to [ɪɴɡ]? to [ɪŋɡ]? — kwami (talk) 01:35, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Constitution of Burma, maybe? — kwami (talk) 08:53, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, [iŋɡ] should be [ɪŋɡ]. I forgot about the assimilation of ɴ to the place of articulation of a following stop. You may encounter im/um before labials, in/un before alveolars, iɲ/uɲ before palatals and iŋ/uŋ before velars; they all need to be changed to ɪ/ʊ too. Thanks! At Constitution of Burma I found [nàiŋàɴ] instead of [nàɪŋŋàɴ]; is that what you were referring to? I also found that last November, someone who had no Burmese font installed had decided no one else should be allowed to see the Burmese text either and so removed it all. Angr (talk) 09:40, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Most are not assimilated, and I remember a discussion about that, so I'm converting the rest. The diphthongs are done, except for whatever I missed because of nasal assimilation. — kwami (talk) 11:16, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Pls. check Pyinmana. — kwami (talk) 11:21, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Trouble at WP:TITLE

Kwami, please review the situation at WP:TITLE, where I have in good faith reverted attempts to force changes onto the page against your restoration of an earlier status quo: my edit.

This might technically be considered a violation of 3RR; but I merely undertook to support your requirement that people discuss instead, on the talkpage. Your reversion took place after the RFC that editors have been referring to, which was subverted (against civility and due process) to promote their view alone.

In fact new discussion has begun; but surely it is proper that the more stable status quo version stay in place till there are unhurried and fairly conducted efforts to settle consensus. Myself, I have been reluctant to join in yet because of intimidation at my talkpage and elsewhere.

Thank you!

Noetica^Tea? 04:50, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Your protection of the page is timely, Kwami. It is difficult for a non-admin to do much against edit-warring without seeming to participate in it, as much as it may be against one's intentions.

I hope the present attempts at discussion will generate something positive and consensual. A number of editors have been exploring new ways; but others insist on reverting to old wording that is plainly contentious, but has real effect in RM discussions without ever having the scrutiny it would need.

Noetica^Tea? 06:07, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Kwami, it's rather hard to assume good faith from you when I (just as B2C did the last time you acted in the same way) have linked in my edit summaries to a clearly conclusive RfC in support of the version that I restored, but you nonetheless proceeded to protect the other, clearly rejected version. It isn't necessary for such discussion to be bureaucratically "closed" when the result is so obvious - the brief "discussion" that led to the imposition of the "current" version was certainly never closed in that way either. Do you not see that this is a blatant attempt to overrule consensus by edit-warring?--Kotniski (talk) 08:13, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Maybe it is. But you linked to the same things you linked to last time. As far as I can see, everyone went on holiday and then came back and restarted the edit war. If the consensus is there, ask another admin, and if they see it, they'll restore the correct version of the article. — kwami (talk) 08:17, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

It has been listed at WP:AN#Requests_for_closure since January 3rd. --Born2cycle (talk) 08:35, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Good. Hopefully that will take care of it. (As for why it's taking so long, maybe no-one else can get through it any better than I can, or don't see any more consensus than I do.) — kwami (talk) 08:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, are you actually looking at the RfC linked to? The result is overwhelming; there's not the slightest doubt about which of the two versions represents consensus. If you don't even want to consider the evidence, then it would be better if you didn't interfere at all; that makes it look to other admins as if you're already onto it, and discourages them from looking at the matter at all. --Kotniski (talk) 08:54, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

"Two"

Here's the problem with your continued linkage between the facts of a language and the speech community. The facts, the data exist in the present. It doesn't matter whether there are speakers who can productively add to the data or not. The data exist. The Beatles no longer create new music, so they don't exist, but their music still exists in the recordings. The Xam people no longer create new linguistic material, but their language still exists in the data. There is only a finite corpus in either case--the recorded Beatles oeuvre is not a complete collection of all the possible music they had in them and the record of Xam is by no means complete either. But the data exist. We can talk about the facts of the Xam language in the present tense because the facts, the data, are right there to observe. We can say without any time distortion that "There is a bilabial click in Xam", meaning, without ambiguity, "There is a bilabial click in the recorded data of Xam". We can say, without confusing any linguist, "There are three branches to the Germanic language family", despite the fact that one of those branches is no longer spoken. We can equally write, "There are strong verbs in all three branches of Germanic," without any opposing voices calling in a peer review for our paper to be rejected on the basis of, "No, there are only two branches of Germanic because one is extinct." We can write that sentence as the very first sentence of an abstract or paper without establishing any kind of "historical present" simply because we are not talking about a speech community, but about a body of language data. Indeed, even when we talk about living languages, we're not really dealing with a speaker sitting next to us supplying us with current, up-to-the-minute forms. We rely on recorded data. Thus the status of the speech community is immaterial to talking about the grammar and phonology of a language because once the data have left the speakers' mouths and been recorded in field notes, conference papers, published works, Wikipedia, whatever, it exists as an independent entity. I use data from my own linguistic recordings done in the 1980s. There are still speakers of the language, but the data is 30 years old and unless someone returns to that community and records new data, then that data from the 1980s will be the record of the language for all time. Yet we still talk about the linguistic facts of the language in the present tense. While some authors do use past tense for languages such as Hittite, it is far more common to read statements about the speech community in the past tense, but statements about the linguistic data in the present tense. --Taivo (talk) 11:27, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

We obviously disagree as to what "is" means. I understand your point. I just don't agree with it, not out of context, and I'm pretty sure most people would think we were being disingenuous if we were to word things that way. I also disagree that data = language. It's not incorrect to say Basque is the only language isolate in Europe just because we have tidbits of Etruscan, and that would be true even if Etruscan went extinct 50 years ago. — kwami (talk) 11:45, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Let me expand on that comment to apply it to the specific incident at Hoan. When a language is no longer spoken, its data do not "become unavailable". It doesn't become an "unlanguage", no longer eligible to be counted in statements of linguistic universals. Thus, when you wrote, "only two other languages have bilabial clicks", you, in essence, were treating the Xam and Xegwi data as nonexistent. Within that data, there are bilabial clicks, but you chose not to count them. That was my objection. Miller counted them with her "in addition to" comment, but you were ignoring the data of the extinct languages. When dealing with language universals, we must count the recorded data of languages that are no longer spoken. You'll find data from no-longer-spoken languages, such as Karankawa, in WALS, for example, because the data are what is important in statements such as "there are bilabial stops in...", not the existence of an active speech community. --Taivo (talk) 11:53, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

But we're not dealing with language universals. If we were, it would also be incorrect to say that there are only a couple extinct languages with labial clicks: there were apparently many, including the ancestors of both the Tuu and Kx'a language families. It's reasonable to assume that the whole of southern Africa was once populated by languages with labial clicks. Saying a language no longer "is" does not make it an "unlanguage". Etruscan is not included in WALS, but that does not make it an unlanguage.

What you're saying is that it's wrong to say that Japonic is spoken in Japan. It's wrong to say that Basque is an isolate. It's wrong to say Chinese is tonal. It's wrong to say that Arabic is the language of the Iraqi marshes or the Nile Valley. It's wrong to ever say that language X is spoken by people Y, because once they spoke something else. There are only three languages with labial clicks. That's a fact about the world today. It's sad that the others are extinct, but they are.

Now, if we're in the context of language universals, or anything else that would include looking at languages that were once spoken, then it would be fine to say "is" re. that body of data. But we need to first establish that context. Otherwise such a statement is factually incorrect. — kwami (talk) 12:09, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

In the Hoan article we are, indeed, dealing with universals. The comment about "there are bilabial stops in only two other languages" is a comment about language universals. Anytime you use the phrase "in X other languages", you are talking about universals and in each of those cases, you're talking about data sets, not speech communities. That's what we mean as linguists when we talk about languages in a grammatical or phonological sense--not speech communities, but data sets with labels. The data set may be dynamic and growing, or fixed and permanent, but we still are talking about data sets with particular labels and not speech communities in that sense. But "Proto-Indo-European" is not a data set, nor is "Proto-Taa" or "Proto-World" or whatever else may be a hypothetical construct. When dealing with language universals, we do not include reconstructed languages when making statements such as "X is found in Y languages". Had you quoted Miller's comment in full, that there are two other living languages plus other extinct languages such as Xam", you would have never heard a peep from me. But basing your unwarranted exclusion of extinct languages from a comment about a universal because of the present tense of the verb is false. --Taivo (talk) 12:35, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

"there are bilabial stops in only two other languages" is a statement of fact. And it is factually correct. By "language" you may mean "data set", but that's not what people normally mean by "language" and not what our audience is likely to understand by "language". There is no language without the people who use it. Unless you establish the context, a statement that a feature exists, when really you mean that it's recorded from an extinct language, is incorrect.

I can see I'm not going to convince you what "is" means, and you're not going to convince me (at least not if you keep repeating the argument that failed to convince me the last few times), so I don't see much point in this discussion. — kwami (talk) 12:46, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Kwami, if you look up the article where Doke describes Xam, you will see a bilabial click. It's there. Do you deny it? No. Therefore there is a bilabial click in Xam. Now you are simply being stubborn and refusing to see linguistic practice for what it is. You do this often--back yourself into a rigid corner based on some style or grammar "rule" that you have set up for yourself or imagine exists and refuse to move out of it. Read any book on linguistic universals (such as Maddieson's description of the UPSID data) and you will see that the present tense is used throughout even when the data sets include languages that are no longer spoken, such as Wiyot, Tolowa, Tonkawa, Wappo, and Shasta (and that's just in his North American data). He has no problem whatsoever in using well-recorded data from extinct languages in his conclusions about phonological universals. Indeed, I've seen no book on language universals that excludes extinct languages simply because they are extinct. They might be excluded for insufficient data, but they're never excluded for the absence of a contemporary speech community. Indeed, when it comes to understanding the way language works, linguists do not make distinctions based on the existence of a speech community (unless, of course, they're talking about the dynamics of language within a speech community). By making a statement like "it is found in only two other languages" you are emphasizing the relative scarcity of the item within the world's languages. But by ignoring the fact that we have evidence for twice as many languages, you are simply lying to the reader and making the item sound rarer than it actually is.

(edit conflict) It would be nice if you argued against my position rather than against the opposite of your own. As I've said several times, present tense is fine once the context is established (as in your |Xam and UPSID examples). You are obviously intelligent enough to understand that, so why are you wasting my time by pretending you don't? Again, you evidently have a different definition of "is" than I do, but misrepresenting my argument is hardly going to convince *me*, and I don't see who else you would be trying to convince on my talk page.

What I've noticed in dealing with you is that when anyone disagrees with you, you think they are either ignorant or dishonest. That's quite an arrogant attitude. You will in your life meet honest and informed people who nonetheless disagree with you, and sometimes they will even be correct in doing so. — kwami (talk) 13:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Your "is" might have been technically correct in some non-linguistic universe, but as far as honestly describing the frequency of bilabial clicks in the world's languages, it was a prevarication. --Taivo (talk) 13:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that "non-linguistic universe" is called Wikipedia.

"Prevarication" entails an intent to deceive. Once again, anyone who disagrees with you must be dishonest. — kwami (talk) 13:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Kwami, meet pot. Wikipedia is supposed to be a place of scientifically valid information, not the place to exercise deception or exaggeration by some legalistic interpretation of grammar that doesn't match actual linguistic practice. Actual linguistic practice is to make no distinction between spoken and extinct languages when the data are equally good and the topic at hand has nothing to do with the presence or absence of a speech community. That's the point that you are simply ignoring in your arguments. The point is that you were deceiving the reader by chopping Miller's statement in half and exaggerating the relative frequency of the sound in the data we have on the world's languages. Miller recognized that the data from extinct languages were just as valid as the data from living languages so she included both. Another author might have simply lumped them together. I suspect that Miller separated them because we don't have sufficient data from all the extinct Khoisan languages of South Africa and so a firm number is not possible. However, she did specify that the sound was more common than just its occurrence in living languages. So my objection to your legalistic interpretation of "is" at Hoan was twofold: 1) it simply isn't supported as a rule in linguistic practice, and 2) you used it to exclude half the relevant data on the issue. --Taivo (talk) 14:13, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Damn you're arrogant. We disagree, and you can't accept that anyone would honestly disagree with you, so I must be being deceptive. Since you have demonstrated several times now that you are not willing to work in good faith with anyone who disagrees with you (since they are obviously not working in good faith, or they wouldn't disagree with you), I have no interest in even trying to work with you any longer. Go away. — kwami (talk) 14:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Not arrogant, simply pointing out that you seem to think that extinct languages are irrelevant to issues of linguistic data description. That's the arrogant part--your insistence on the importance of a speech community. --Taivo (talk) 14:26, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

No, what's arrogant is that you think I'm being deceptive because I don't hold the opinion you do. No-one could honestly disagree with you, so I must be dishonest.

And again you are glossing over my actual point to substitute your straw man. Do you really think I will forget my opinions if you misrepresent them often enough? Of course extinct languages are relevant data. When did I even say otherwise? (No, don't answer that, you'll just make something up.) But they're not extant, and it's inaccurate to say they are, and that's what you were doing. Now, go away. — kwami (talk) 14:31, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

FFS, just add "extant" or "living" or whatever. Problem solved. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:04, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Florian. The problem on the page is solved; Taivo's edit is perfectly acceptable. We're just arguing because we still can't agree about the initial point of what "is" means. It has nothing to do with the article any longer. — kwami (talk) 20:52, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Kwami is right that the article is already fixed. But our argument isn't over what "is" means, but actually over what the term "language" refers to when there is no extant speech community. --Taivo (talk) 21:18, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Language means language, extant or extinct. But IMO you can't say "there is" a language when it's gone. So it is an argument over what "is" means. Washington "is" our first president, though you'd normally say "was", and you certainly can't say he "is" president. When asked how many presidents there "are", I seriously doubt most people would answer "43" (assuming they knew the answer). More likely they would say "4" (alive) or "1" (serving). You'd hardly accuse someone of lying if they didn't give the first answer. — kwami (talk) 21:44, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

LOL. And now we're arguing over what we were arguing about. You have misstated my position with an invalid analogy. My point was that when dealing with a language without an extant speech community, the body of recorded data itself constitutes the language and therefore can be (and is) referred to with "is" so that statements that deal with language features on a universal basis are correct in counting data from no-longer-spoken languages since those data do exist and provide equally valid evidence. A better analogy is that the music of the Beatles still exists in recorded form even though the Beatles themselves are no longer with us as a group and no longer perform their music, so we can still talk about "Hey, Jude" in the present tense and not the past tense. --Taivo (talk) 23:09, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I think a better analogy to that would be specific speech acts: Churchill's speeches still exist. A language is like a living thing: it's the production that really matters. Yes, a part of the language (usually a very very small part) exists as data that can be compared with other languages for typology or to reconstruct ancestral forms. But that's like a photograph or DNA sample of a person being used to analyze or classify them. When asked how many people drink bottled water or belong to the X party, you don't count the dead. (Well, you're not supposed to. Sometimes parties do.) If there are 4 species of frog in a marsh, and 3 of them go extinct, you don't continue to say that there are 4 sp. of frog in the marsh. |Xam is and will be used for comparison and reconstruction and other things, but the data we have is not the language, only a record of the language. Saying it "is" the language because it's all we have left is like saying Grandma's shawl "is" Grandma because it's all we have left of her. — kwami (talk) 23:50, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

But the statement over which this whole issue began said that "there are two other languages with X feature", ignoring the other two languages for which we have data. It's not about "three languages exist", it's about "five languages have evidence for X". If the data exist and the data show Y, then in an encompassing statement about Y, it is right and proper (and is done throughout the appropriate literature) to include the languages without extant speech communities in the calculation and discussion without explicitly separating them into "living" and "dead". --Taivo (talk) 00:02, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

If we were in the context of comparing data rather than languages, but we weren't. We were in the context of comparing one living language with other languages. We didn't say "we have evidence that this has existed in X languages", or "we have records of this from X languages", but that "there are two other languages with this". And that is correct. There are two. There are also records of several more that once were, and we can compare data sets between living and dead languages, but the languages themselves no longer are.

There's the President. There are 3 other (ex)presidents. We have records of 39 more, plus another 14 under the Articles and Continental Congress, and we can compare their lives and their politics. But it's at best misleading to say there "are" 43 (or 57) presidents, unless we give a suitable context to establish that we don't mean in the present moment. Without such a context, present tense means in the present moment. — kwami (talk) 00:16, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

An incorrect analogy to begin with, still the wrong analogy. And the statement was not about comparing languages, living or dead. It was about making a typological/universal statement on the presence of a particular set of clicks in the known languages. It was about making a statement about the scarcity of those segments, not about "comparing" anything at all. When such a typological statement is made then it is to all the data we know in order to give an accurate and not a misleading number to judge a segment's scarcity. By eliminating the data from the extinct languages, you effectively halved the number of languages that have evidence of the segment, thus giving the impression that the segment was twice as scarce in our knowledge base than it actually is. Show me a single instance in Maddieson's Patterns of Sound where he distinguishes between sounds in living languages versus sounds in extinct languages. There isn't one. UPSID includes segment lists from half a dozen extinct languages in North America alone, but in not a single place does it matter for the description of the relative frequency of sounds. --Taivo (talk) 03:37, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I still disagree that's what it was about. That's not how I read it, and still not how I would read it. Perhaps I'm more literal than you are, but it seemed, and still seems, perfectly clear to me. I'm afraid we're just going to have to disagree on this. 03:55, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

So it's essentially a philosophical and partly linguistic problem. Another take on that issue, and this is where I disagree with Kwami, too: Present-tense verbs such as are do not necessarily refer to the present time exclusively. They can also refer to some general fact, independent of time. See Gnomic aspect. Exactly this aspect must be expected to be pervasive in encyclopedic texts, given how they describe (scientific, or other) knowledge or at least definitions or (social, or other) facts established by some sort of consensus or convention. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:36, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Gnomic is usually understood with generic statements: "Birds fly" rather than "The birds are flying". Historical/narrative present is understood within certain contexts: "So this guy comes up to me and says" introduces one, introducing topics that require such a framing may be another: "Cicero's Latin is" (though Taivo would take the latter to concern present records of Cicero's Latin rather than living Latin in the time of Cicero). But if I were to say "There are X official languages in Europe", even in an encyclopedia I would not expect that number to include languages which are no longer official or to include states which no longer exist. Similarly, if I say "there are 400 languages in the Indo-European language family", I'm not counting the hundred or more extinct IE languages which are attested. That is, in such cases present tense means 'at present', and that's how I read the statement we were debating. — kwami (talk) 20:44, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

But, Kwami, our disagreement has never been about speech communities, but about data. There was never any attempt to say that "there are 5 Khoisan languages in South Africa" or anything like that. It was strictly about data and the existence of a particular class of sound in a particular group of languages. It was never about whether there were speakers of those languages or not--that's the totally irrelevant spin you put on it. In the data for five different languages there exist bilabial clicks. Whether there are extant speech communities is irrelevant. --Taivo (talk) 22:52, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Taivo, that is precisely what the disagreement is: I read it as being a statement about speech communities. You read it as a statement about data.

(There is actually data for bilabial clicks in 7 languages in Southern Africa, 1 in East Africa, several in West Africa, one in Europe, and perhaps others I have not heard of, of which only the first are phonemic.) — kwami (talk) 22:58, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Indo-European languages map

G'day! Just a friendly heads up to point out that your latest update to this map has apparently pulled the continents off the globe and created some unusual proportions. Would you be able to restore its proportions while retaining the updates? Best regards, Hayden120 (talk) 16:48, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, Inkscape does that, and I don't know why. If you want to fix the continents, you'll need to revert, and loose the corrections. Or redo them with a different program. — kwami (talk) 17:02, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

No worries, I have restored the last stable revision. Hayden120 (talk) 17:07, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

The description should be corrected, then: It's not a map of IE languages, but of IE languages and IE-based creoles. — kwami (talk) 17:09, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

The image can still be corrected. The problem was only with the changes in dimensions and the layout. I'll try to fix it later after I have some sleep. Hayden120 (talk) 17:14, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Bob's your uncle. Hayden120 (talk) 04:15, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

How to resolve the Dwarf planet dispute

Hello Kwami. The complaint that you filed against Ruslik0 at AN3 is still open. Very-long running disputes that involve admins tend to wind up at Arbcom, but I think that could be avoided in this case. The original RfC that you opened in September is here Your question was:

So, if we have RS's that a body qualifies, but the IAU hasn't weighed in, is the body a DP for our purposes?

The implication is that you want Wikipedia's criterion of dwarf planet status to use the outside sources that you propose, and not be limited to what the IAU has ruled are dwarf planets.

Actually, I want us to reflect the literature, not my sources: that is, what I was told we should do when I raised this issue at the RSN. I did not propose Tancredi, for example. And if Ckatz or anyone else finds RS's that contradict Brown or Tancredi, let's add them in too! In fact, I have asked repeatedly for such refs, for months, maybe a year, but no-one has provided one. I want all significant reliable sources to be represented when we make that introductory statement: "X is a DP" if that's what our sources say. For several bodies, DP status is unanimous. For others, it is not. There are varying degrees of acceptance which should not be difficult to capture in the lead if NPOV is seriously our goal.

And the IAU process is a bit weird. They named three bodies as DPs which everyone agrees are DPs. Then two more large objects were waiting to have their names approved, and there was a dispute over which committee would review and approve the names. It was decided that if the abs. magnitude is < 1 (which in both cases it was), then the planetary-nomenclature committee would name them under the assumption that they were DPs, and that it wouldn't matter if they turned out not to be. But if it was > 1, then the minor-planet committee would name them, and the question of whether they were DPs would be addressed at a later time. (That was 5½ yrs ago, and it still hasn't been addressed. Meanwhile, the world has moved on.) Then, when Haumea and Makemake were named, the press releases said things like "4th DP announced", "Solar System now officially has 5 DPs", etc. It's impossible to know what went on behind the scenes, or how "official" they are, because it's not public record. But according to the IAU's own definition, a body is not a DP because they say it is, but because it meets the criteria for for a DP. See the IAU (2009) quote I provided, which states that it is not their intention to say that the bodies named as DPs actually "are" DPs, though it is "likely" that they are—perhaps coincidentally, the same assessment that Sheppard et al used and which people are so upset about! Of course, the committee may have decided it was certain, but we just don't know. (And in any case, science isn't done by fiat from a committee.) Nonetheless, nearly everyone accepts them as DPs. They only exception is Sheppard et al., and here we have Kheider and Ruslik vociferously denying that they say what they so obviously say.

My impression is that the underlying dispute is solvable by compromise, but the people engaged have become too angry to consider reasonable steps. Some editors who responded to the RfC (including Ckatz at 18:20 on 27 September) have claimed that you have continued to change the text of the Dwarf Planet and related articles while the RfC was under way. If that's a correct assessment, I can see how that would make people mad. Please respond with whatever ideas you have to resolve this. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 20:39, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

If you mean the current RfC, the only changes I have made to the DP article have been on unrelated topics such as whether a working group at the IAU accepts the term "plutoid", which even Ruslik agrees with. As for the previous one, I was blocked for edit warring with Ckatz, and at that point I promised to leave it to someone else to to put whatever is agreed on into the contested section. I have not touched it since, except for copies on the talk page (or, in case I'm called a liar again, possibly basic cleanup such as fixing links or spelling—I make a lot of edits and don't remember half of them). Yes, after months of stagnation in the DP discussion, running in circles with claims that the sources were "lying" and all the rest of the nonsense, I started editing the other articles, which have their own NPOV problems. But Kheider and I have actually been able to resolve a lot of it, when allowed to do so.

The primary stumbling block currently is Ruslik. I don't want my interpretations of his actions to be seen as a personal attack, so if you want them I'll email them to you. I just realized he was an admin a couple days ago, and still find that difficult to believe. As much as I disagree with Kheider, I can work with him. Perhaps some mediation would be needed, but we can work together. Ckatz continues to assume bad faith, which would make it very difficult to work with him, but if he can overcome that, maybe we can.

The problem as I see it is that we are seriously violating NPOV is several featured articles, and we have several editors who are either unable or unwilling to see that. (Ask JorisvS his opinion, and I'll probably agree with 90% of it.) Brown and his team discovered all the bodies in question. He's the renowned expert in them. The IAU website refers readers to his web site for a better understanding than what they provide, and their technical reports make numerous citations of him. Sheppard and his teams have discovered half of the known moons in the Solar System. Tancredi is used as a reference by the IAU committees themselves, and I believe they've even asked him to prepare the reports that we're citing. These are not peripheral people. It's also obvious that Alan Stern, the man who coined the term "dwarf planet" and who heads the Pluto mission, believes that these are all dwarf planets too, although I have not been able to dig up a direct "X is a DP" quote to support that impression. (He only refers to them as dwarf planents in bulk in what I've been able to find.)

We are sidelining the principal experts in the field. Such blatant violation of NPOV is not acceptable. Mediation would, I think, probably work with Ckatz, and would obviously with Kheider, if it's even necessary with him: We've already come to an acceptable compromise on several articles, usually only to have Ruslik revert it to his version, which generally has little connection to reality (since the sources which everyone else accepts are either "imaginary" or "lies"). Add Jorisv, and I think we can get this to work. I think Ruslik is either mentally or emotionally unable to handle this, but with a formal mediator calling him on his nonsense, we can probably work around him. The alternative as I see it is to apply to have the FA status of these articles revoked. (I know what a pain it is to get an article through FA, and that many reasonable people have worked very hard on them, but they're currently an embarrassement.) — kwami (talk) 21:39, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Can I ask why you resumed making controversial edits without ever asking for the original RfC (which you opened in September) to be closed? There seems to be some very bad communication going on. If everyone takes their eye off the ball I can see how they would never perceive that a consensus has been found. Paying attention to a single RfC is one way to make everyone focus. EdJohnston (talk) 22:33, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

When it became obvious that the discussion at DP was going nowhere, I moved on to other articles, figuring that if we could work them out one at a time (and we have worked out a few), maybe we could build up to consensus at the DP article: "Look, we've already agreed on this, that, and the other. Can we now focus on the rest?" But then Ckatz and esp. Ruslik started reverting everything I did, whether there was any apparent reason for it or not. At one point Ckatz reverted me, Kheider restored the edit, and Ckatz said, well, if Kheider said it, then I guess I'll let it pass. He wasn't reverting me because he disagreed with the content, but merely because he was being obstinate and refused to accept anything I did. You can't have a discussion in that kind of atmosphere.

But honestly, I can't remember what was part of the RfC and what lay outside it. When you asked why there was no RfC on the page, and I found it, I assumed it was one Ckatz had started and never properly opened. Ckatz had to point out to me that I had opened it. What I can tell you is that there has never been anything close to consensus on the DP page. We are no closer to agreement now then we were when I opened the RfC—farther apart, actually, because some time after that Ruslik arrived, with his fantastical belief that a thing only exists if it's been declared in committee, regardless of what scientific sources say. Many of the opinions expressed were so stupefyingly ignorant (to put it euphemistically) that I had a hard time believing that they were made in good faith, which is why it was such a shock to me when I found out R was an admin. Maybe I concluded it was pointless. Maybe after the tag was removed I simply forgot about it, since it wasn't relevant to achieving anything. For whatever reason, I did take my eyes off the ball. As for the new RfC, so far it's the same people as last week, and we've all heard each other's opinions ad nauseum.

It would be nice if we got even one or two editors who could read a semi-technical ref without arguing about whether it exists and who had a basic understanding of NPOV policy. That's why I think mediation may be the way to go: someone who knows how policy applies in contested cases, and who can read a ref and say, "yes, it does say that" or "no, it doesn't" or "what do you mean it's imaginary, the link is right there". I don't have a problem being wrong—Kheider has disproved several of my claims in this debate, and I've simply abandoned them—but you have to demonstrate it, not just jump up and down screaming "you're lying!" — kwami (talk) 23:18, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

People seem to think that you are the obstacle right now. At least, nobody has responded in the 3RR case to support your position. A 3RR case from October 12 ended with a block of your account. If you were to agree to step back from the dwarf planet issue for a period of time my guess is that the remaining editors would be able to sort out a compromise on the issues presented on the talk page. EdJohnston (talk) 23:43, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I know what the compromise would be: apart from JorisvS, it would be to ignore RSs and continue to violate NPOV. Their arguments are that (a) the sources don't exist (despite their quoting from them) or (b) they don't say what any reasonable reader would understand them to say. It's simple sophistry to ignore the obvious. Sometimes we get reasonable arguments about WEIGHT, but rarely.

The 3RR case was a case of edit warring over POV tags, for Christ sake! I didn't realize Ruslik was an admin at the time, but really, an admin edit warring to remove POV tags? You just don't do that.

Talk to JorisvS about what should be done. He is reasonable, willing to compromise, but also understands that we need to respect the sources and not just the ones we happen to think are right. — kwami (talk) 19:46, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

You seem to believe that the rightness of your position is so obvious that it frees you from having to follow the normal steps of dispute resolution. It should not be up to me (as a reviewing admin) to go around and negotiate with all the other parties. You surely understand what it takes to gather a consensus and make compromises. Do you notice that you've offered a bunch of *content* arguments in answer to the complaint that you personally have a conduct problem? Ckatz complains that the dispute has been running for more than a year; I didn't check. It takes a lot of stubbornness to keep something going that long. EdJohnston (talk) 21:52, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I have filed for a RfC and requested comment at Wikiprojects and at the NPOV and RS boards, and have said that this may require mediation. Those are the normal steps of dispute resolution. — kwami (talk) 22:22, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Nasal stop

I am rather puzzled by your rename of "Nasal" to "Nasal stop". The nasal consonants in most languages are not stops. The airflow is not interrupted and they can be continued indefinitely. −Woodstone (talk) 23:21, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

They are stops orally. "Stop" is the conventional term for that: "Nasal" is an abbreviation, at least in some refs. SOWL uses "nasal" because they use "stop" for "plosive", but you can't assume that's the case with an unknown source. Generally stop = {plosive, nasal}, and nasal = {nasal vowel, nasal stop, prenasalized stop, etc.}. And a good number of our articles had [[Nasal consonant|Nasal stop]].

Is this a problem? Should we put it on hold? — kwami (talk) 23:40, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I never heard the term stop used in this way (but, though I took some classes in linguistics and have read up on it, I'm not a linguist). The IPA handbook, both in its figures and symbol lists, has plosive and nasal categories on the same level, and I cannot find any reference to an overarching stop category. As the explanation at plosive states, the term is often used interchangeably with stop or occlusive. Naming the nasal a nasal stop is thus confusing and unnecessarily qualified. We also don't have plosive stop. If you think nasal is too vague, we may use nasal consonant. It would avoid confusion for the average reader. −Woodstone (talk) 05:54, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I've heard nasals are oral stops for precisely the reason Kwami mentioned. However plosives are also oral stops, and we don't call the plosive article "plosive stops." By their nature, nasal consonants are sonorant stops as one of my teachers liked to put it. And that's what people will think you're talking about when referring to nasals. Nobody is going to assume for example that when you talk about "nasals" you're referring to nasal clicks. --Quintucket (talk) 19:08, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

They're stops in the oral tract, but no-one calls them "oral stops". Rather, a "stop" is defined as complete occlusion of the oral tract. They're called "nasal stops". An "oral stop" would be a plosive, since "oral" is defined as "not nasal". At least in some sources. Others use "nasal" for "nasal stop" and "stop" for "plosive / oral stop". So "nasal stop" and "plosive" are unambiguous, because no-one uses them for anything else. — kwami (talk) 19:37, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Here's a rather common example of a nasal consonant that's not a nasal stop (and so both is and is not a "nasal"): Nasal palatal approximant. — kwami (talk) 07:13, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I suppose that, if Nasal consonant is to remain a disambiguation page, then there will be about 400 incoming links to check and divert per WP:FIXDABLINKS. Thanks for fixing lots of them already with AWB. This tool may help with the rest. Certes (talk) 23:30, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Bud Selig

Thanks for letting me know...made the fixes and adds I did intend to add. Nate • (chatter) 05:42, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Kwami

Just to let you know, I kicked you in the groin a bit at the Noticeboard fight that is currently going on about Dwarf planets issues.

To be fair and honest, I wanted to let you know once again that, in my entire 51+ years of life on this planet, I honestly have NEVER seen an expert in ANY field with the breadth, depth, dedication, and "prolificness" (is that even a word?) as you have/are in languages and linguistics. Your skills, dedication, and contributions are just ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, and I have INCREDIBLE respect for you in that regard!

I await your devastating counterpunches with a bottle of 800 milligram ibuprofen and a large Coke at the ready.

Your fan and occasional punching bag: Cliff (a/k/a "Uploadvirus") (talk) 14:36, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

You think I'd block you for commenting on a 3RR case?

Also, check the page history of my user page for how active that to-do list is, and for how long that has been at the top of it without action. (Top doesn't mean top priority. It probably means it's been there the longest, or among the longest. The list is nearly inactive. The ones I have finished have been at the bottom, and it's been quite a while since I've done any of them. The rest have just been sitting there since whenever I added them – years, in some cases.) — kwami (talk) 19:56, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Request protection downgrade of Zaza people

Hi Kwami,
It's been about half a year since you protected Zaza people. Looking at the revision history, unless I'm missing something, it seems like you protected it because of a dispute between two editors (Takabeg and Wikisporting). I'd like to make some minor edits, and yes to tweak some things that do seem problematic to me (the larger point of the dispute whether the Zaza are Kurds is one on which I have no opinion, except that it should obviously be neutral and verifiable.).

So I'd like to request a downgrade to semi-protection (or even full unprotection). As a general rule, I refuse to participate in improving fully protected pages in article namespace, since it tends to be needlessly difficult for everybody involved, and frankly a bit insulting, since it implies that based on a dispute between two users the rest of us can't be trusted.
Regards, --Quintucket (talk) 18:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Unprotected. Let me know if it becomes a problem again. — kwami (talk) 19:39, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I know both of the users involved in the dispute remain constructively active in articles other than this one, and I've posted on the talk page. I think if Arab Christians and Israel can reach a consensus, this should be relatively easy, at least as ethnic conflicts go. --Quintucket (talk) 19:51, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

cat links

Just put a colon at the front of the link: [[:Category:Siouan languages]] = Category:Siouan languages. — kwami (talk) 04:45, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh, hey, I almost forgot: Thank you very much for that helpful hint! --BjKa (talk) 17:32, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Difference in writing style

Am I crazy, or is there a basic difference in the writing style here [3] and that of the editor on talk pages, ie yours? Dougweller (talk) 06:07, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Juǀʼhoansi1987 orthography

Hi Kwamikagami. I have a question about the 1987 Juǀʼhoansi orthography. You've added data about it [4]. I'm wondering whether <a̹, o̹, â̹, ô̹> (currently with right half ring below) should not be <a̧, o̧, â̧, ô̧> (with cedilla) or perhaps <a̦, o̦, â̦, ô̦> (with comma below) since both cedilla and comma below are much more common. Of course it's still possible that right half ring below is the correct diacritics, it's just that they can be pretty similar looking sometimes. Thanks in advance. --Moyogo/ (talk) 10:54, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't have access to that anymore. I'm gonna guess the comma, because the cedilla I would have transcribed as such. But it was a print source, not electronic, and AFAIR, they did not say. — kwami (talk) 11:23, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

IPA fixes?

Your change to Rani Mukerji was marked fix IPA..., but you removed the IPA completely. How is that a fix? BollyJeff || talk 12:53, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

It was beyond my fixing. (Sorry, the edit summary was automated: most were simple stress fixes.) That wasn't a possible Hindustani pronunciation, which is how it was formatted. Context would suggest it was supposed to be Bengali, but AFAICT it wasn't that either. It looked like it was supposed to be English (it had an English oor sound), but seemed dubious that the /k/ would be silent. Or do you maybe have a ref for a silent /k/? Do you know which language it was supposed to be? (I've given up going to the talk pages on articles like this. They just sit tagged for years with no response. Glad this one got your attention: maybe we can correct it?) — kwami (talk) 20:23, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I cannot help because I don't understand IPA and I don't speak anything but English. I need to learn about this IPA stuff. BollyJeff || talk 20:32, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, if you know the pronunciation in English, we can always add that. If you don't know the IPA, you can explain it in sound-alike words, or respell it, though I may have to ask for clarification a few times before I understand completely. Or a Webster-dictionary-type transcription would work. — kwami (talk) 00:49, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Involved admin

You are an involved admin, a friend of one side in that dispute. I restored the text that existed before the dispute arose; if you continue this, you may explain yourself to ANI. JCScaliger (talk) 00:14, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I just came here to say the same thing. You are an involved editor on this issue, and taking action that is clearly against consensus. This has been explained to you multiple times by multiple editors, and you refuse to engage in substantive discussion about it. Instead, you avoid answering good faith questions about it by deleting the whole thread. You should not be using your admin powers, or threatening to use them, on this issue. If you feel your actions are truly justified, find an uninvolved admin who agrees.

By the way, referring to editors as "psycho", as you did here, is a pretty clear violation of WP:NPA. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:20, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Your definition of "involved" is that you didn't get your way. Sorry, that doesn't fly. As I've said numerous times, if you have a consensus that I can't see, get another admin to resolve this. Meanwhile, we're on our third round of edit warring. I will block anyone who continues. — kwami (talk) 00:28, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The operative word there is "we", because you have been instrumental in fueling the edit warring. And my definition of "involved" is having a strong opinion on the issue, as you demonstrated that you do here on Dec 15 before this dispute started on Dec 21. You had no business getting involved at all here after demonstrating such a bias on the core issue here. No wonder you couldn't "see" consensus that supported the change - you were blind to consensus that disagreed with your strong opinion! No wonder you reverted edits to the version that favored your position prior to locking the page, rather than just locking the page at whatever version it was at as is the typical thing admins do.

On policy pages especially, I suggest you not put on your admin hat if you've edited that page in the previous 12 months or so. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:39, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Look, I've asked you several times to find another admin, one who can see the consensus that you claim, and have them resolve this. I'll happily pass my hat on to them. You are apparently unable or unwilling to do so. Fine. But meanwhile I'm stuck as the admin here, and I won't have edit warring on a policy page. It's disruptive. Since I can't see the consensus, I'm keeping it at the pre-war version. If another admin sees that you have consensus, they'll change it to your version. Couldn't be more straightforward. — kwami (talk) 01:46, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I've asked for another admin for weeks. The RfC was listed and then delisted from the list of RfCs for closure at WP:AN. But that has nothing to do with the simple fact that you knew you were biased and you should never gotten involved in the first place, much less after we started asking you to explain yourself and you refused, causing the frustrations to increase and boil over. Nothing made you stuck as the admin here. You're perfectly capable of making a request for someone uninvolved to take a look, and, as an admin, you should have had better luck than I would have. Your calling Kotniski a "psycho" and threatening to block JCScaliger happened today.

Finally, and most importantly, as an admin, you should be able to put your biases aside in a situation like this, evaluate what's really going on, make an objective decision, and answer the good faith relevant question about what you're doing and why. You did none of that. You were involved. You were biased. You were unable to be objective, and yet you involved yourself as a biased admin repeatedly. The amount of time that was wasted here over such a straightforward issue has to fall mostly on the shoulders of Noetica, Tony and Dicklyon, but as the admin who definitely didn't help and actually prolonged it, a bunch of it is on you too. Shit. My initial edit on Dec 21 should not have been reverted in the first place, and, since there was never any substantive objection expressed about it (which remains the case, over a month later), it should have been quickly restored. The current status of WT:AT stands as a monument to the art of Status quo stonewalling, which now has a section inspired especially by your actions:

Manipulating an admin into helping

Because many admins are predisposed to favor the status quo whenever there is a dispute, after creating sufficient smoke and noise with some of the tactics listed above, stonewallers can often be successful in convincing an admin that dispute and lack of consensus exists, and can then get the admin to restore the status quo version (if necessary), and possibly even lock the page if any evidence of an edit war can be demonstrated. This tactic is particularly effective because it causes an admin who sees himself as being uninvolved to get involved in a manner that favors one side (the status quo stonewallers) over the others. Once so engaged, such an admin can prove to be useful to the stonewallers repeatedly.

Good job!!! --Born2cycle (talk) 02:07, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I hope you understand that I'm very frustrated, very frustrated, and had to vent a little. I stand by what I said, but I'm sure I could have worded it in a more positive/constructive way. I apologize for not doing so. Feel free to delete. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:12, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Once again, your definition of "biased" appears to be "doesn't agree with me". I'm sorry that you can't find another admin, but do you expect me to let a policy page devolve into a skirmish because of it? Yes, perhaps I've been duped, but your accusation is that I'm intentionally biased: that is, corrupt. I've been repeatedly charged with this, from three of you just today, and my reaction is that if you have to stoop to personal attacks to make your argument, you can't have much of an argument. Perhaps that's why I've never been able to see the consent you claim, and why no other admin has bothered to take over?

As for me asking others admins to step in, I'd be happy to. (You seem to imagine that I'm somehow aware of what you're going through, and would automatically jump in when you're in difficulty.) Just tell me where. — kwami (talk) 02:29, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit conflict]: No, I'll let it stand. I hope my ec'd response is adequate. — kwami (talk) 02:29, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

You're not understanding. I didn't say you were intentionally biased. I said you were biased, you knew it, and you should have chosen to not intervene as an admin because of that. You're biased because you have an opinion. If you agreed with my opinion and disagreed with Noetica's, you'd still be just as biased. An uninvolved admin is one who arrives to the scene without an opinion either way. That's not you, as made evidence by your edit earlier in December. Again, you're not biased because you disagree with me. You're biased (or "involved") because you've, well, been involved. It's like taking part in an RM discussion and then closing it. It doesn't matter whether you !voted Oppose or Support - either way you'd be biased when you evaluated the discussion. What you want is an uninvolved admin who, prior to evaluating the situation, has no prior opinion about the substantive issues. In this case, that wasn't you.

But, having said all that, if you can't read through the discussion and see that 9, 10, 11 12 people have now expressed clear support for the "familiar with" wording, and nobody has given a single substantive reason to keep the status quo wording, well, that's concerning. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:21, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

If I'm biased and I know it, then as far as I'm concerned, I'm intentionally biased. And as I said before, I'm not going to judge the discussion and determine consensus. The consensus should be already determined, and no-one has been able to point it out in a way I can understand. And even when I ask you to tell me where you would like me to bring this up so an (in your POV) unbiased admin can step in and take over, you do not respond. — kwami (talk) 06:43, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I have put the whole matter in the hands of admin Elen of the Roads. Born2cycle, I request that you stop your harassment of Kwami immediately, and centralise your remarks at Elen's talkpage. Noetica^Tea? 05:37, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd hardly call it harassment. He just appears to believe that if I don't agree with him, I must agree with you. — kwami (talk) 06:43, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for recognizing I'm not harassing you. "He just appears to believe that if I don't agree with him, I must agree with you". It's not even that. It's that if you have been involved in discussions about the core issues of a dispute - then you're not "uninvolved" with respect to that issue".

As to your question, can't you ask at WP:AN? I've asked WIll Beback, but he's too busy. But you can find a list of bullets/links on Will's talk page that might be useful. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:59, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I didn't recognize that as being the same issue (as much as I remember thinking about it at all—it's been a while), and I did not have an opinion on who was right in the dispute. (I still don't know whose version would be better for WP.) Perhaps I am too close, but until another admin steps in, it would appear I'm the only one preventing an edit war on a policy page.

Since both of you (and more) have commented at Ellen's page, let's see what she has to say. If she doesn't want to deal with it, let me know, and I'll post a request at WP:AN. — kwami (talk) 07:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

My statement to Elen

My statement to Elen of the Roads (talk · contribs) about our dispute regarding WT:AT recognizability was so long I put it in a separate file, User:Born2cycle/DearElen. If you have a chance to look it over, and let me know if you find any inaccuracies or other problems with it, I would appreciate it. If you don't mind, please leave comments about it at User talk:Born2cycle/DearElen. Thanks! --Born2cycle (talk) 19:00, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

It looks fine to me. — kwami (talk) 22:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Dwygyfylchi

Hi Kwamikagami. Thanks for your reply to my query at the MoS talk page. I've been meaning to contact you for a while regarding another matter. I've noticed that pronunciation appears to be a special interest of yours, and wondered if you'd be interested in applying your talents to help English-speaking readers pronounce the above article; it's a place-name which causes a certain amount of bafflement, I think. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 04:50, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it does look like someone sneezed while typing, doesn't it? I'll take a look. — kwami (talk) 04:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Haha, yes. Many thanks. I'm not a Welsh speaker myself, though I did once live near the village concerned, and could provide a non-professional indication of its pronunciation if you wish, though I appreciate you may prefer the challenge of figuring it out yourself... PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 04:58, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I've taken a stab at it, but can only assume that the stress is on the fyl. (And the l there is pronounced as a normal l, not like a ll, correct?) Also, if there's an established English pronunciation, let me know. — kwami (talk) 05:07, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not aware of an established English pronunciation - it's too small a settlement I think. Yes, the main stress is on the fyl, though I think there may also be a secondary stress on the first syllable; I'm not sure. Would that seem correct? (I find secondary stresses difficult to pick out sometimes). And yes, the l is pronounced in the 'normal' way. I'm not well-versed in the phonetic alphabet, but I'm assuming that the character you've used for the ch sound indicates a pronunciation similar to its use in Scottish loch? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 05:27, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Normally it's "x", but for some reason we've decided to be more precise in the IPA key I linked to, and I followed the convention there. — kwami (talk) 05:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I've just had a look at the approximate pronunciation on the article; I would say that it's slightly different to the way I had heard it pronounced (though of course I may have misheard, or 'misremembered'). In my limited knowledge of Welsh pronunciation, the letter y is usually pronounced as an uh sound, rather than an ee (at least it is on its own, as in Betwys y coed; it may be pronounced differently when in conjunction with other letters), and I recall the final syllable being pronounced with a vowel sound similar to the first syllable in Taiwan, rather than as in key. Hence my memory of the approximate pronunciation of the whole word is more doo-uh-guh-vul-chai (please excuse my non-professional way of describing pronunciation). However as I concede above, my memory might be serving me poorly, and I defer to any knowledge you may have which indicates a contrary pronunciation. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 05:52, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

We do have the 'y' as an "uh" sound. It would be odd for Welsh 'i' to be pronounced like bye, though this name could be an exception. — kwami (talk) 05:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I was looking more at the 'y' after the 'w' (in the approximate pronunciation), but I think my memory is best not trusted, as I think it's making things up! (I should have compared the first 2 syllables of Dwygyfylchi with the word Clwyd, which I do know how to pronounce - then I would have seen that dooy is correct) Better to rely on someone with proper knowledge, like yourself! Thanks again, PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 06:28, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello again Kwami. I understand it's considered polite to let another editor know if they're being written about at all elsewhere, hence I'm alerting you to a brief discussion I had here, where I discussed the pronunciation of Dwygyfylchi with another editor (yes, I hadn't quite finished chewing that same bit of fat I'm afraid..). If you're interested in listening to a spoken version of Dwygyfylchi, there's a link you can follow in the discussion. Cheers. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Kwami. An IP editor has made a minor alteration to the IPA spelling of Dwygyfylchi, and changed your assertion of 'approximate' pronunciation to 'anglicized' pronunciation. I have no idea whether their edit is being helpful, or is just political axe-grinding. Are you able to take a look? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 19:55, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Reverted, pending citation/discussion. The IPA doesn't match the key like that (though perhaps it would be an improvement), and if we're going to say it's anglicized that way, we should be able to back it up. Maybe it is, and it might make more sense that way, actually. — kwami (talk) 21:09, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Let's see what happens... PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 21:18, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

World Cup stress?

How's your Tswana? Where does the stress go here? I've heard the BBC use both Vuvu'zela and Vu'vuzela. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:52, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Penultimate syllable, with a lengthened vowel. But the high tone might come earlier, and we might hear that as stress too. Except that AFAIK vuvuzela is not a Tswana word. If you can get your hands on the Oxford Dictionary of English (3rd ed., 2010), they have an entry for it. — kwami (talk) 22:41, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Alas, the V section in my 1978 Shorter Oxford ends at Vum, meaning "to vow, or to swear". Does the 2010 Oxford give any etymology? Is that really an English word? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:50, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

There are BBC reports of it being added in the 2010 ed. That's all I know. Maybe the local library? — kwami (talk) 22:54, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I see. The article currently says: "The term vuvuzela was first used in South Africa from the Zulu language or Nguni dialect meaning to make a vuvu sound (directly translated: vuvu-ing)." I think I had established that Nguni typically stresses the penultimate syllable for most verbs (although I'm no longer quite sure how I managed that!) But many thanks for your help. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:03, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Pluralisation of titles

Hi, could you please explain why have you pluralised the titles of various Rajput articles, seemingly without discussion? Have I missed some conversation thread somewhere? - Sitush (talk) 07:23, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

It's the normal naming convention for peoples: either "X people" or "Xs": WP:NCP#Articles on peoples (ethnicities and tribes). Half of them were already named that way. — kwami (talk) 07:30, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Hm. There have been discussions on individual article talk pages that have reached no consensus about the issue. Are you going to do the same for Sunar, Paravar and the other ca. 2000 Indian community articles? (That number is a guess: there are > 4000 such communities & most seem to have articles, so if half are not already pluralised ...) - Sitush (talk) 07:40, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't see any reason too. As long as "Sunar" is a reasonably recognizable name, there's probably no need to further disambiguate. The problem comes in misnaming (using "tribe" for groups which are not tribes, etc) or when the name would be pluralized if it were following our NC's, but isn't. — kwami (talk) 07:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but that general argument could be used for some which you have pluralised. Taking parentheses off "(clan)" and using "tribe" only when appropriate makes sense; pluralising in the manner that you have done in the last few hours just seems, well, random. Especially when you bear in mind that these groups are frequently referred to in singular form, eg: "the Bains Rajput fought against Aurangzeb" rather than "the Bains Rajputs fought against Aurangzeb". I think that you probably should have discussed it: I am all in favour of consistency but this is not going to achieve it. - Sitush (talk) 08:03, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

If normal usage is without the -s, then I'll be happy to switch back. But what I came across was about 50–50, so for consistency some would be changed anyway. — kwami (talk) 09:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

BTW, Saini people are not a clan and therefore should have been moved to "Saini" or "Sainis", not Saini clan. - Sitush (talk) 08:07, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Ach, sorry. Moved. Saini caste would also work. — kwami (talk) 08:17, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Could you stop making moves like Swati (tribe) to Swati (Pashtun tribe)? There are no non-Pashtun tribes called "Swati", so I don't see why you do this.

You also moved Hashmi Syed (Nakokara) to Hashmi Syed (Nakokara) clan, where there are no other articles called "Hasmi Syed", and when both Hashmi Syed and Nakokara are red links. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:14, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Point taken on the 2nd. Shouldn't we pick one name or the other, though? Neither should have been redlinks: the more common form should be the article, and the other a redirect.

As for your second, the Swati people are sometimes called a "tribe" in English, even if they technically aren't one. — kwami (talk) 00:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I picked Hashmi Syed.

on the 1st point, those tribe moves go against WP:PRECISION. Can you move Swati (Pashtun tribe) back to Swati (tribe) or Swati people or whatever you prefer to distinguish it from the other Swati? And undo your other moves of tribe articles? --Enric Naval (talk) 17:19, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I asked in wikiproject pakistan if they don't mind that I move some of those articles. --Enric Naval (talk) 04:27, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

That's fine. I moved them according to what made sense to me at the time, but I'm sure I would have made different decisions if I were more familiar with the topic. — kwami (talk) 04:49, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding moving Oriya culture

Dear User:Kwamikagami, nowhere in the past anyone ever has seen a word called Orissi. My humble request would be before moving a page to a new name please discuss the same with the native speakers. The name Orissi' is incorrect and the actual name of the page Orissi culture would be Culture of Orissa. Subha^Utter2me! 11:00, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Either name would be correct (if you don't know the word, you can look it up in a dictionary), but the former name was not: it was the wrong topic.

Anyway, I am a native speaker, but I see from your user page that you are not. — kwami (talk) 11:03, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I am a native speaker of Odia (Oriya) language and can you show me any place where Orissi culture is written? Because it's never used anywhere and I really don't understand from where you got this imaginary name! Subha^Utter2me! 10:49, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

But we're writing in English, not in Oriya, so we use English words. As for an example, if you don't have access to a dictionary, how about Prafulla Mohanti (1974), My village, my life: portrait of an Indian village‎: "This marks the beginning of a new Orissi culture". Anyway, I moved the article per your request when you made it. — kwami (talk) 10:54, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

2nd class source?

Hello Kwamikagami, I don't understand the reason of your "undid": why Ethnologue should be a 1st class source and a scientific research made by a Swiss University Language institute should be a 2nd class one?--Calànch (talk) 11:36, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

You mean the number of speakers of Italian? That's fine to add in the 'other' column, but if we start mixing refs, we'll soon have everyone fighting to place their language as high as possible in the list. (I noticed you moved Italian up. No-one ever moves their language down.) It's either follow a given source, or delete the article as hopeless. Such edits also tend to be OR/SYNTH: your source may have a very different definition of 'Italian' than Ethnologue does, but there are other languages in the list that depend on the Ethnologue definition of Italian. — kwami (talk) 12:10, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

The Ethnologue's reason makes sense, so why the "(no data)" under the 62 million Ethnologue estimate? Of course no-one ever moves their language down, because this subject is strongly linked with cultural and geopolitical issues, but Ethnologue too is not free from this kind of remarks: as the Article say, it belongs to the SIL International, an American Christian Evangelical non-profit organization, so it's hard to believe that it's completely neutral on linguistic themes (the best solution would be an international body, anyway).
Anyway I saw that the article incipit stress enough the partial POV of Ethnologue estimates, so I'll put my source in the Additional-info column.--Calànch (talk) 13:42, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not "no data", it's "no date". No date was provided for that population estimate.

I agree that Ethnologue is not ideal. But it's all we have in coverage of the world's languages. The only rival, Vogelin & Vogelin, was last updated in 1977!

The main thing Ethnologue has been criticized for is due to its mission: its definition of "language" is whoever needs a separate translation of Scripture, and so may not agree with others' conceptions of the scope of a language. We could boost the numbers for Italian by considering all dialects in Italy to be a single language, but we could similarly boost the numbers of German, Hindi, Chinese, and many other languages with that approach, and then get into fights between people who want to boost their numbers by subsuming related dialects, and those who want their dialect recognized as a separate language. — kwami (talk) 04:46, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Notice concerning an action at ArbCom

A request has been filed for the Arbitration Committee to look at long-term issues with editing in the Article Titles and MOS areas at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Article titles/MOS. I have added your name as a party, since it is clear that you have been involved at pages that are within the scope of the action. Noetica^Tea? 21:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Article titles and capitalisation case

An arbitration case involving you has been opened, and is located at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation. Evidence that you wish the Arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence sub-page, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation/Evidence. Please add your evidence by February 12, 2012, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can contribute to the case workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 14:58, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Fictive judge in Burmese "fables": Princess Learned-in-the-Law

Greetings Kwamikagami! May I ask you a question?

In Burmese "fables" there is a woman, a mythical judge, in English translations called Princess Learned-in-the-Law. An academic who has collected these tales is Dr. Htin Aung.

My question: Are you able to give me the Burmese original of "Princess Learned-in-the-Law" and the latin transliteration? I'd highly appreciate your input.

If you are the wrong person to talk to - do you know, where I could find an answer to this question? Sincerely Grey Geezer 22:49, 29 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grey Geezer (talk • contribs)

Sorry, absolutely no idea. I'd ask at the reference desk. — kwami (talk) 23:06, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I will. Thanks. Grey Geezer 23:20, 29 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grey Geezer (talk • contribs)

"American" in the Americas article.

Hello, I need your opinion on the talk page. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.43.184.178 (talk) 22:09, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Not sure on what point, but I restored the demonym w a link to address concerns about usage. — kwami (talk) 22:21, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.43.184.178 (talk) 22:30, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

The Early Alphabetic Corpuses

Hey Kwami, my Proto-Sinaitic/Wadi el-Hol translation article has been in the process of review through JNES over the past few months; hopefully it will be published (forthcoming) within the next year at the longest.

This confirms my suspicion that academic standards regarding evidence and analysis are actually easier to meet in this poorly developed field than Wiki's standards against original research - which have been applied arbitrarily (since the characters on that chart are not Phoenician or Proto-Sinaitic... literally have no idea who found them or where or from what).

I still have your email address if you want me to send you the latest draft. Your chiding and unnecessary combativeness was what led to this project in the first place.

Michael Sheflin (talk) 13:51, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Our RS standards require that you get published. Otherwise we consider it OR. If you get published, wonderful: you're welcome to edit the article according to your now-published source, bearing in mind WP:WEIGHT (contrary opinions which are also published). Yes, I'm not surprised that it may be easier to meet their requirements than ours, because we don't have publishing requirements, because we're not a peer-reviewed journal. If you have concerns about other aspects of OR on the WP article, please specify what they are and why, preferably on the talk page of the article. — kwami (talk) 01:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh I was talking about interpersonally. Once I publish, what would I care what Wiki says about Proto-Sinaitic. The academic backlash, which would be step one toward any consensus, concerns me far more than what unrelated laypersons read about a highly esoteric subject. And regardless, the page needs a lot of revamping anyway - most of the fragments have published photographs and there has been a substantial amount of scholarly research not discussed - including (pretty irrelevant) meta-debates about letter identification and including rare-corpuses not mentioned in that article or the History of the Alphabet.

I would also never post my own research, even if published, because that's a huge tool move. If I had cared more about the Wiki page than the academic record I would have spent two years editing the page and not doing research and writing for publication. If my research proves durable, let someone else add it in 10 or 100 years.

But you called me out specifically on key factual aspects, and I thought you might want to actually read my thought-out responses based on research from the sources. Wiki's page is currently an almost tertiary source - and as I have pointed out, the chart uses letters from an unknown alphabet. In any event, there is so much misdirection and epistemization within the field that I choose to battle there and not anymore in a tertiary forum. Michael Sheflin (talk) 17:38, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

It sounds interesting. I'd like to see it, if you don't mind. Not that I'd be likely to be able to provide any useful feedback, of course. — kwami (talk) 17:42, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

The case of the misfired mouse

Hi, Kwamikagami. I inadvertently rolled back one of your changes to Urdu. I then rerolled it so everything is ok. I just wanted to drop you a note explaining my error so that you wouldn't get mad and kick my ass. ;-)

Thanks, Dave (djkernen)|Talk to me|Please help! 19:28, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

That's okay. I do it all the time. — kwami (talk) 20:10, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Your revert

Could you please explain this? It is a well sourced edit. Or is this a kind of POV pushing by you? Please remember that you are a sysop for the community and elected by the community which has rules you should protect. In this case it looks like you have forget it. --WizardOfOz (talk) 18:19, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Is Wolfram|Alpha considered a RS? I thought it was more like quoting WP. I generally revert population changes based on non-linguistic sources. Also, the ref. date was still that of Ethnologue, even though the change abandoned the Ethn. figure. AFAIK, the 4M figure is simply the number of Bosniaks, but since the differences between BSC languages are mostly identity, we'd need a source that indicates speaker identity. If there's consensus to use Wolfram|Alpha and the BBC as RSs over Ethnologue, I have no objection. — kwami (talk) 01:01, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

So all of hose and those are misplaced? Whats leads you to the hypothesis that 4M of Bosniaks don´t speak Bosnian? The number of speakers which still stands in the article is not sourced at all! Please provide a reference for 2M or change it back to the sourced one. --WizardOfOz (talk) 07:14, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

It was sourced at the end of the box, but I made it explicit. — kwami (talk) 07:25, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Your source is specialy for those Bosniaks in BH, am I and more than 100000 members of this this institution counted? Or 200.000 Bosniaks in Serbia, 50.000 in Montenegro, 20.000 in Croatia, 50.000 in Slovenia, 17.018 in Macedonia, 25.000 in Kosovo, 80.000 in Turkey, than emigrants in Germany, Austria, Australia and so on, are those counted? EN speakers are also not only in US, Kanada, UK and Australia :D. So on those numbers, I´m able to say that there are at least 3 if not nearly 4m speakers. Your source is only for Bosnia but not for the world, and we are not talking about number of Bosniaks in Bosnia, but about the number of Speakersof the language in the whole world. So please stop your POV editing and POV protection as you do allways on Bosnia related articles and try to accept that even you can´t know how much they realy are. --WizardOfOz (talk) 09:56, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I can't say how many there are—and neither can you, which is why we follow sources.

Ethnologue says that is the total "for all countries", and adding the figures together, it's clear that they're counting Serbia, Montenegro, and Croatia.

If you have a better source, please provide it. We can't go on "what you can say". — kwami (talk) 10:09, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

So let us take a look at "Ethnologue well sourced" articles on this wiki: Serbian 9-10M Speakers, Croatian 5.55M, Serbo-Croatian 16.3M... as you can see there is something wrong on Ethnologue... because if we count those two together... there are already nearly 16M. Let us add those 2M of bosnian speakers which are also counted as SC speakers by Ethnologue, we have nearly 18M speakers... so how to trust a source that can´t even do a simple addition? We can let it as a compromise, and add 4 M and the two sources you removed in addition. So we have both POV and the reader can decide which he will trust. But we can´t take only one for sure if there are relevant data on other sources. --WizardOfOz (talk) 10:22, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

You aren't reading the references. The 9–10M Serbian, for example, is not sourced to Ethnologue, which counts only 7M. Now, it's true that that still doesn't add up to 16.3M (it's under rather than over), but that's not unusual in stats: you may have a ref that gives the population of SC without breaking it down, and therefore have to rely on other refs for each component, so that the two do not match.

Interesting, if you check the 15th ed. of Ethn,[5] you'll see 4M Bosnian, with the same date. Evidently that figure was corrected between the 15th and 16th editions. Presumably they had a reason for that (they also reduced Serbian from 11M to 7M, and Croatian by a million as well), but unfortunately they don't include the history of the entry.

Again, if you have a better source, please provide it. — kwami (talk) 10:35, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

The question is what a better source is than counting together the number of Bosniaks around the world. We can´t even see the sources on which is Ethnologue based. But there are more than enogh sources about how many Bosniaks live in the world. If we take all those sources listed, how can you even try to suggest that there are only 2M? There are 19 sources with 3.084.151 Bosniaks (Serbs and Croats not counted!), and you still talk about 2M speakers just because of Ethnologue? --WizardOfOz (talk) 10:48, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

The number of an ethnicity is not necessarily the same as the number of speakers of their language. This is especially true with a language like Bosnian, which is essentially a mental construct: if you call your language Bosnian, it's Bosnian, but if you call it Serbian, it's Serbian. There are Bosniaks who call their language Serbian. Now, again, if you have a better source, please provide it.

You also might want to present it on the talk page of the article, where other people can see it. — kwami (talk) 11:03, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

There are also Serbs and Croats who call their language Bosnian, just as example this one, one of our sysops. But that doesn´t mean anything. User whom edit you reverted already provided two sources, and I gave you 19 above. So at least there should be 2-4M with all three sources so the reader can decide. Are you going to insert it, or should I? --WizardOfOz (talk) 11:14, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Let me get this straight: You're saying the Bosnian language "doesn't mean anything"? Should we delete the article then?

The only way to ID the Bosnian language is by what people call it. If your Serbian sysop says he speaks Bosnian, then his language should be counted as Bosnian rather than Serbian. (If you just want to say there are 4M Bosniaks, we have an ethnicity parameter in the info box which can handle that.)

You haven't provided any sources, you linked to a WP article. Again, if you have any sources, please provide them, preferably on the article talk page, where other people can see them. — kwami (talk) 11:20, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Don´t take my words out of context. What i was saying is that it doesn´t metter if you say that some Bosniaks say that they are speaking serbian, there are also non Bosniaks who say that they are speaking Bosnian. If I understand you right, you, the self maded linguitic God (pure sarcasm), are saying that a language which have ISO code, which is spoken by (based on your only known and accepted source) 2M people, which has it own grammar, own dictionary and so on (and as such recognised by whole linguistic world), doesn´t exist? Are you aware of that, that this is a clear declaration of your POV and a clear POV pushing by you? You are a sysop of a wikimedia project, and at least you should know the five pillars. So tell me just one thing: what´s wrong with BBC as a source if it is used on other articles as a source and therefore credible enough? Repeating of "give me better source" doesn´t bring you anything, because you just need to read once again what I wrote above. Your source is identical in weight to the BBC, because even Ethnologue had 4M standing there for a while (your link). There is no need to transfer this to the talk page of the article, because we are not talking about the fact what is true (as you wrote above you can´t also know what of those numbers are true. neither me), but about of your behavior of POV pushing and reverting sourced edits whithout any base or common sense and not accepting of consensus I asked for (2-4M with all three sources). --WizardOfOz (talk) 11:59, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Now you're just being silly. Don't waste my time any further.

But, just in case you don't get the math: if some Bosnians say they speak Serbian, and some Serbians say they speak Bosnian, you can't just ignore them both and call it even. — kwami (talk) 12:02, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

But, just in case you don't get the math: if some Bosnians say they speak Serbian, and some Serbians say they speak Bosnian, you can't just ignore them both and call it even. Is something I´m trying to say you all the time. And stop calling me silly, as this is a personal attack in my eyes. And I will not waste your time anymore, but I will change the number of speakers as the user Gradanin did and live in addition the 2M as comparison. Both are sourced, both are relevant and improvement for the article. --WizardOfOz (talk) 12:17, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

You are making personal attacks, and silly ones at that, so I will call them silly. If you don't like it, don't say silly things. Better yet, stay off my talk page, and I won't have the opportunity. — kwami (talk) 12:24, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Which edit warring?!? I have only one edit and you have more than three revert of sourced edits. What are you talking about? There is no need for the article talk page, because you are the only one who have something against. So it will be better in your case to inform an uninvolved sysop as this is a clear COI in your position. Sorry but those are the project rules where we both are sysops. --WizardOfOz (talk) 13:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

When you fight over an edit, that's edit warring. And I have no stake in how many people speak Bosnian, so there's no COI.

Again, please make your argument on the article talk page. If people accept your sources, you'll get the numbers you want. If you want others to review them, you can ask at the languages project, or I can ask other linguists to review. — kwami (talk) 13:09, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

No I don´t fight over an edit. I have just make addition to your 2M and sourced this with two sources which have been used by the user Gradanin. This is what we call be bold. It´s not me who have a problem with numbers, 2M are still there, but you who don´t accept other arguments. As our discussion was before my edit, you are a involved sysop and this is a COI for you. So please contact others but left the edit with 2-4M untill there is decision. Once more, edit is improvement, edit is sourced, Wikipedia is free, so stop reverting without base as this can be seen as misuse of sysop tools. --WizardOfOz (talk) 13:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

It is obvious edit warring, and you just did it again. I will give you a chance to revert yourself (I'm going to bed now), but if you continue I will report you and ask to have you blocked.

I contend that your sources are not reliable. (The BBC ref, for example, is from 2003 and could easily be using the old Ethnologue figure as its source.) If others disagree, I have no problem accepting your numbers. But you need to convince people, and not just insist that you're right. — kwami (talk) 13:22, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

This is a threat of an involved sysop. As we can´t be sure which sources are both, BBC and Ethnologue using, we can´t say which one ios more reliable. I´m not going to revert myself as it is a edit in good faith and acceptable by all rules of the project. And as a sysop and crat, I can´t imagine that there will be someone who is prepered to block me because of one edit that is sourced and improvement. Good night, and ping me tomorrow when you are awake so we can end this discussion and find a way out. Just leave me something on meta or bswiki. --WizardOfOz (talk) 13:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Matisoff and Hmong-Mien languages

Sorry for the copy-and-paste blunder — I'll definitely ask you to move something if the move function doesn't work for me.

As for the Hmong-Mien languages cited by James Matisoff, I haven't seen anything about them. Matisoff, however, does include a very interesting looking tree on page 299 in "Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance: Problems in Comparative Linguistics" (2001). The page is available on Google Books preview, although most of the book is still offline due to copyright restrictions. I'll get an interlibrary loan for that book soon, and hopefully be adding some interesting info onto Wikipedia. — Stevey7788 (talk) 07:50, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I added it to our articles, but I can't tell if it's meant to be comprehensive, or just a representative sample. That "Patengic" could be interesting, though I suspect it's just Bunu, which is an ethnic rather than linguistic group. — kwami (talk) 11:24, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Naxi language

Hi. I am trying to expand the zh:納西語 article. I noticed that the Naxi pinyin orthography you added to the Naxi language article is very different from the one described in He et al. 1985. What is your source? Daltac (talk) 23:06, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't know specifically where I got it, but the basics are here.[6] The pinyin is supposed to date from 1957, though. Their source appears to be McKhann, 1992, Fleshing out the bones: Kinship and cosmology in Naqxi religion, vol. 1 (PhD thesis). — kwami (talk) 02:50, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Buyei language > Bouyei language

Hi Kwami, Could you please move Buyei language to Bouyei language, and also Buyei people to Bouyei people? Wil C. Snyder, the main Western authority on it, always refers to the language as "Bouyei" rather than Buyei. That is also how it is referred to in the Routledge Tai-Kadai languages book, as well as many academic papers. Thanks. — Stevey7788 (talk) 06:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. You might want to fix the leads accordingly.

Did it not allow you to move them? I didn't see anything that would interfere. — kwami (talk) 14:35, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

It didn't allow me to do so, since Bouyei language was already a redirect page. Also could you please move Khene to Khaen for similar reasons (it's pronounced /kʰɛːn˦˥/ in Thai). — Stevey7788 (talk) 21:05, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I think kene might require some discussion. I can't tell which form is more established in English, as both are used, and it isn't a specifically Thai instrument. Kène is the French spelling, which suggests that spelling may be older in English. — kwami (talk)

Maltese and Arabic

Hello kwami. I would like your input. What is your take on the relationship between Maltese and Arabic? --JorisvS (talk) 23:10, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd say Maltese is one of the Arabic languages, since it isn't really one language anymore. AFAIK it's not one of the more divergent by genealogy, but it hasn't been under the perhaps restraining influence of Koranic Arabic, and it has been under the influence of European languages. But then Moroccan Arabic and Hassaniya have come under strong Berber influence, which is probably at least as strong. — kwami (talk) 23:24, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, that was pretty much what already I thought. There has been one persistent user at Template:Varieties of Arabic who has been removing Maltese from that template and doesn't care, it has turned out now, about the reasons why it should be included (I had hoped until now that countering his arguments could convince him). --JorisvS (talk) 19:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, sociolinguistically it's not Arabic, but a separate language, because the people do not consider themselves to be Arabs. But even if you give that view priority, it's at least a child of Arabic, so I don't see any reason it shouldn't be included in the template. Templates are for navigation, after all. They're not theoretical claims. — kwami (talk) 19:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

He also had a point about MSA not being the literary language for Maltese, so I added Maltese to the standard varieties. — kwami (talk) 19:19, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that omission. --JorisvS (talk) 19:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Sigh, it just continues...Maltese is still being removed from the template for bogus reasons. I'm really tired of this. --JorisvS (talk) 18:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and I have now added a note about Maltese not being Arabic sociolinguistically, which seems rather appropriate. --JorisvS (talk) 18:52, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

IPA

Good edit of yours -- I wouldn't quibble with any part of it. So just for my casual interest: What's the meaning of "IPA" (in the edit summary) in this context? ("Italicizing, punctuation, and agreement"?) -- Hoary (talk) 00:43, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry! I forgot to change the edit summary in AWB. About a dozen edits slipped through before I noticed. — kwami (talk) 00:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah! I understand. (Quite irrelevantly, relax for a few minutes with my latest discovery.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:00, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Display titles

Just a reminder that DISPLAYTITLE is correctly written in all capitals with a colon, thus: {{DISPLAYTITLE:''Th''-alveolarization}}, not {{displaytitle|''Th''-alveolarization}}. — Paul A (talk) 09:01, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. — kwami (talk) 11:04, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Serbo-croatian

Hello, hi! :) Well, i just wanted to hear the rational for adding Serbo-Croatian as official language? Serbo-Croatian, under that name, is not official language, nowhere on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. --WhiteWriter ^speaks 17:01, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

To Bosnia? Per the language law of 1993, the official language is "Ijekavian". Ijekavian is Serbo-Croatian. The law says that it goes by different names according to ethnicity, but it does not say there are three different official languages. I suppose we could say the official language is Ijekavian, as SC has greater scope, though that name is not familiar to most English speakers. — kwami (talk) 00:04, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Ryukyus

Nanshu came along and steamrolled the article to remove any sort of reference to the Japanese name of "Ryūkyū-shotō" despite having been completely uninvolved in any of the changes you and I have done to the article.

Well, I have since re-incorporated his changes into the article. I am still opposed to his decision to completely marginalize the "Ryūkyū-shotō" term, as he also changed every single interwiki link to refer to the Nansei Islands form of the name (getting rid of the links to the German, French, Korean, Japanese, Polish, Russian, and Chinese pages on the "Ryukyu Islands" to the pages on the "Nansei Islands").—Ryulong (竜龙) 21:56, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I've started copy editing some of the new wording.

Why did we have ルーちュー as a second name? — kwami (talk) 00:45, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

ルーちュー is the Nakijin dialect form.—Ryulong (竜龙) 05:35, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

What's the diff tween hiragana and katakana ch? We don't mention it in our articles. Perhaps it could go in a footnote with clarification? — kwami (talk) 05:37, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't know. The dictionary I'm using seems to show that the "chi" is shown in the Nakijin dialect as the hiragana chi, when it's the katakana chi in the Shuri-Naha dialect.—Ryulong (竜龙) 05:44, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, "Nakijin" is written with similar disparity in the two dialects:

• Shuri-Naha: ナチジン
• Nakijin: ナちヂン

They're even throwing in an even rarer form of the ji syllable.—Ryulong (竜龙) 05:47, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

It presumably means something. I don't think we should include it unless we can explain it, esp. considering it's a local form. — kwami (talk) 05:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

It's just an entity of the Kunigami/Nakijin dialect in this dictionary.—Ryulong (竜龙) 06:47, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The merge was a nice idea, but it's just caused too many problems. I'm restoring the Nansei Islands page and moving content you and Nanshu added to the proper individual pages on the other island groups.—Ryulong (竜龙) 20:07, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

My unmerging has completed. Content referring to the Amami Islands and the Satsunan Islands are moved off to their respective pages and now Ryukyu Islands solely discusses the Japanese Coast Guard definition of the chain. Naturally, this is going to restore Nanshu's issues that the definition of "Ryukyu Islands" now excludes the culturally similar Amami Islands, including them, Tokara, and Osumi under the moniker has proved too problematic.—Ryulong (竜龙) 20:21, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

But this is not Japanese WP, it's English WP, and as has been demonstrated, in English sources the Satsunan Islands are considered part of the Ryukyus. And the merge hasn't caused any problems, except for the minor issue of whether ryukyu should be used as their Japanese name, which can be settled on the talk page (and where I agree with you, BTW). I will restore the merge. — kwami (talk) 23:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Fine. Re-merge. But I hope you have not undone my copies of content onto Amami Islands or Satsunan Islands.—Ryulong (竜龙) 02:45, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, based on everything he's done, Nanshu is putting a heavy weight on the inclusion of the Amamis into the article.—Ryulong (竜龙) 02:48, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you.

I don't see anything wrong with your edits to Amami. As for Satsunan, that would depend on whether it's a WP:content fork or not. I haven't read it yet. — kwami (talk) 02:51, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Wait, it is just a content fork! Please read WP:content fork. Duplicate articles and sections of articles are discouraged. They're difficult to maintain in parallel, and generally end up contradicting each other.

We can discuss where the info should go—that's a stylistic question as much as anything—but it should be in one place, with only a summary at other articles. — kwami (talk) 02:56, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

It wasn't a content fork until you put everything back on Ryukyu Islands. Frankly, I think the content on Ryukyu Islands should be summarized, with the bulk of the coverage of the history of the Satsunans where I put it.—Ryulong (竜龙) 03:42, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

That's quite reasonable. (Though I didn't change any of your edits to the Amami Island article.) Normally we do go into greater and greater detail as the articles become more specialized. Would you move over what you feel is more appropriate on the Amami article, without removing the normal English use of the name "Ryukyu"? — kwami (talk) 03:46, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I will try to divide up the history section off to its proper places on the articles of other islands. I made another attempt, but it seems that there's just a lot of information that concerns more of the islands.—Ryulong (竜龙) 03:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I also think Kunigami language needs some work because it is only a dialect of Okinawan.—Ryulong (竜龙) 04:28, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Depends on what you mean by "dialect". Most treatments I've seen have Kunigami/Nakijin and Shuri/Naha as separate Okinawan languages. They also have separate ISO codes, not that we necessarily follow ISO. — kwami (talk) 04:31, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I can't seem to find any sort of coverage of it as the "Kunigami language", just the "Nakijin dialect".—Ryulong (竜龙) 04:39, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

If you're willing to accept the sparse treatment in Ethnologue, there's this: xug. — kwami (talk) 04:47, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

As expected, Nanshu has come along and reverted to his preferred version, with the Nansei IW links and removing any mention of Ryūkyū-shotō from the lead. I've reverted back to the version that we have been working on, incorporating some prose-level changes that were helpful.—Ryulong (竜龙) 19:53, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

And he's also moved History of the Ryukyu Islands to History of Okinawa Prefecture.—Ryulong (竜龙) 19:54, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, we are apparently not allowed to have Interwiki links on a redirect.—Ryulong (竜龙) 01:04, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I might not see updates this far up in my talk page, so if I don't respond, drop a note below, or start a new section.

Reverted the move and concomitant changes.

I'd ask him for a link to the WP policy that states we cannot have IW's in RD's. I've seen that done often enough, and never heard of it being a problem. It would be quite useful, actually, if the RD is ever developed into an article of its own; also, it would prevent confusion in other WPs, as bots frequently update IWs automatically. — kwami (talk) 01:55, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Got it. Also Tsuchiya Hikaru has reverted me on every project that has a "Nansei" page.—Ryulong (竜龙) 02:04, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Your changes might be causing complications on other WPs. Maybe it would be a good idea to discuss with him what your and his goals are? I've cleaned up a couple cases like this, and it can be a real pain in the ass to sort them out, esp. when a bot follows you mixing them all up again. Maybe he's been frustrated with s.t. similar. — kwami (talk) 02:09, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

User_talk:Tsuchiya_Hikaru#Nansei_Islands. Also I don't think it's problems on other wikis. He just removed the IWs a week ago, and then reverting me again today.—Ryulong (竜龙) 02:10, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

And he just reverted you.—Ryulong (竜龙) 02:12, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

According to our IW page, IW's should be decided on the basis of topic. As such, I would expect WP-en Ryukyu Islands to link to WP-ja 南西諸島. — kwami (talk) 03:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a pain in the butt. There are more other language version pages on the Ryukyus, though. And they are likely of better quality than the Nansei equivalents.—Ryulong (竜龙) 05:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I've asked here for our conventions in such cases. I haven't found anything other than the one sentence I quoted. — kwami (talk) 05:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Most of the "Ryukyu" articles cover all of the Nansei-shotō, and so should be IW's here. In Russian and Chinese, the "Ryukyu" and "Nansei" articles cover the same topic, and so both belong here. (They should be at least partially merged, and their communities need to decide which name the islands as a whole should go under.) The only cases where we have two distinct articles, and the difference more than just the list of islands or discussion of the name, are de, fr, and ko, and in none of them is the Ryukyu article particularly well developed. The Korean Ryukyu article is tagged as a stub, for example, and the French is tagged for lack of sources. So we wouldn't be missing much. (WP-de even has a 3rd article, de:Liste der Inseln der Präfektur Okinawa.) — kwami (talk) 06:11, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Idakka

This Indian hour glass drum is used to mimic vocal singing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__w0sNx8RXQ

--Opus88888 (talk) 05:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

That's not evidence. It even says, "he incorporates complex Carnatic patterns in his Idakka performances." Could two people hold a conversation using idakka, without music? — kwami (talk) 05:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I agree that it is not a talking drum. Don't understand what have to do " It even says, "

we were talking about melody (title says 'raga played'), not the rhythmic patterns that Idakka produces. --Opus88888 (talk) 01:35, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

We should be able to change the talking drum article to reflect that. — kwami (talk) 01:46, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Map of Caucasian Iberia

Can you please, tell me why did you changed my edit of new identical map of Caucasian Iberia I've put recently? What do you have against it? The older one and the new one are the identical ones, but the new one is more of a good quality. GeorgianJorjadze (talk) 11:59, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree you map looks much better. But it's of Colchis and Iberia rather than of just Iberia. — kwami (talk) 12:03, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I understand but the previous map also was like this. It had Colchis in it as well. So, I don't see why this map should be changed into the old one because it is more of a good quality and everything is seen perfectly. GeorgianJorjadze (talk) 12:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

No, it is not also like this. Sure, it has all the neighboring states. But it's a map of Iberia. Yours is a map of Colchis and Iberia. In an article on Iberia, we should have a map of Iberia. We only substitute when we have nothing better. Yours is prettier, but not as precise. — kwami (talk) 01:51, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Why do you edit war with me? LOOK at the maps! THEY are the SAME and IDENTICAL. Why do you keep putting the older one with low quality? GeorgianJorjadze (talk) 10:33, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Because the article is about Iberia, NOT about Colchis. Create a map of Iberia, and I'll be happy to accept it. — kwami (talk) 18:50, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Help with pronunciation keys

Hi Kwami! I don't know a lot about pronunciation keys but I know you do. I'd like to create one (with a voice clip) of my user-name, for use on my talk-page. It seems many users erroneously insert the letter " i " into the middle of it. Perhaps you can help :)  -- WikHead (talk) 04:28, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Wow! Thank you very much Kwami. I've never used one of these templates before, so I'm guessing I might have to sandbox a bit to get it together... but thanks to you, all the fancy characters (the hard stuff) have been taken care of. If there's anything I can help you with along the way, please feel free to give me shout. Thanks again, and have yourself a great day! :)  -- WikHead (talk) 05:59, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey Kwami! This would be somewhat of a made-up word of course, which basically splices the two words "wick" and "head" together. I dropped the C to keep it more fitting with the name of the project. I'm guessing that the audio clip might be revealing something unusual about my accent. If you believe the clip should be rerecorded, or changes made to the template itself, I would appreciate your advice in effort to get it correct. Thanks for following up on this.  -- WikHead (talk) 01:38, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Well yes, Wikipedia-head (somewhat like gear-head) is basically what I was aiming for. Its origin however, is a spin-off of my actual first name "Rick" + a shortened version of my actual last name = "Head". In other venues, I commonly use the name "Rickhead"... the kids back in my school days used a slightly different version of this again ;)  -- WikHead (talk) 02:09, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

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off. lang.

Hi Kwamikagami!
Where did you find the "the federal language law", I'd like to read it. Could you please send the link to me? --DzWiki (bs) (Talk) 15:48, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

It's cited in the ref. I don't have access to the whole thing, just what was quoted from it there. You might want to ask on the talk page to see if anyone has it. — kwami (talk) 15:50, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

New article Ekpeye language

		The Barnstar of High Culture
		Thanks for for creating the new article Ekpeye language, which expands Wikipedia's coverage of topics about global cultures. Northamerica1000(talk) 14:47, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for creating a stub? Thanks, but it makes me wonder what the criteria are. — kwami (talk) 04:56, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

inre Him Ganga Hum

If you read the text of this screening announcement, you will see it was identical to the "Synopsis" section formerly seen here. In my cleanup of the article, I have removed it as a copyvio violation. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 20:25, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Good. There are a lot of copy vios in that topic area for some reason. — kwami (talk) 00:46, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Unicode on over 60% of WWW

You might be interested in this report.

• Fridaygram: Unicode, ancient lake, very ancient sound - The official Google Code blog, Google code, Friday, February 10, 2012

I considered adding it to "External links" in the article "Unicode", but it already has many external links. I am not sure of which article(s) in Category:Unicode would be the most appropriate for that external link.
—Wavelength (talk) 00:01, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not the kind of thing I'd normally expect in an external link. It's only relevant now; in a year it will be out of date. Better as a ref for citing that figure, IMO. — kwami (talk) 00:47, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:05, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

And thanks. It is interesting. The main resistance AFAIK, besides inertia, has been from Chinese, as Unicode did not (and perhaps still does not) adequately cover that script. — kwami (talk) 01:14, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Would You like to Help?

Hi, I am starting Wikipedia:WikiProject Ravidassia. I would like to get help from people who are interested. You may sign up for the project on the [[7]]. McKinseies (talk) 10:44, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, but not s.t. I know anything about. — kwami (talk) 00:55, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Miyako +resources

Hi Kwami, since I noticed you were making changes to the Miyako language article, I thought this list of additional online resources might prove to be useful: http://www.incatena.org/viewtopic.php?p=831728#p831728 Cheers. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 16:05, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! — kwami (talk) 00:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Wow, the intro volume looks interesting. Amazing it's available online. — kwami (talk) 01:30, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it was by pure chance that I stumbled upon it, but the best part, I find, is that it's both recent and not strictly japano-centric. Oh, and it's in English, which helps of course! Now, if only there was a similar in-depth study on Yonaguni. As for my write-up on the Kagoshima dialect, I replied on my user page here. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 22:55, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Kagoshima dialect

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Proposed deletion of Words without consonants

The article Words without consonants has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

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Kalyan97

Looks like COI, and the book he is adding, Indian hieroglyphs: Invention of writing by S Kalyanaraman is self-published by Kalyanaraman's "Sarasvati Research Center". Dougweller (talk) 09:50, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Aquatic ape hypothesis

Any chance you can take a look at the talk page and article? Two new editors, with less than 200 edits between them, believe the page should place considerably more emphasis on the AAH being true. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 20:46, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Boris Ivanishvili

Hello Kwami, Please change the name of this article to Bidzina Ivanishvili. His real name is Bidzina Ivanishvili NOT Boris. --Georgianჯორჯაძე 23:28, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid you'll need to discuss that on the talk page. Both Forbes and Die Welt call him "Boris", which suggests that he may have taken that name for 'Western' consumption. Common enough thing to happen, and we use the name a person is best know by in English, not the one which appears on their birth certificate. (I don't know that is true, I'd just like to see a discussion before making a move I don't understand.) — kwami (talk) 05:47, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Kwami, I've posted in the talk page there but nobody's there. Noone is replying there. It's Bidzina Ivanishvili and as it is in the Birth Certificate as well. And it was hard to pronounce as the name and it was changed not officialy of course in Russia, while he lived in Russia. Can you please also discuss is in Boris Ivanishvili's talk page? --Georgianჯორჯაძე 15:08, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

US relations articles

Please formally propose a move of the US relations articles before moving any more of them. I oppose the changes for a number of reasons and they have not been discussed. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:11, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Where would be a good place to bring this up? — kwami (talk) 04:12, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there's a Wikiproject or something that deals with them. You can always just propose it using WP:RM. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:17, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

One thing I do know about the issue is that there has been squabbling for years over the form these articles should take. It took about 6 years to arrive at a consensus to use the format "COUNTRY1–COUNTRY 2 relations". By convention and to avoid disputes, the countries are always placed in alphabetical order. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:21, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed they were alphabetical. However, sometimes that goes against the normal English convention of postposing longer names.

I'll bring it up at WP:AT. — kwami (talk) 04:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I found Wikipedia talk:WikiProject International relations. That's probably as good a place as any if you're serious about the change. It would be a big change from what has been established by a fairly long and hard-fought process, though. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:31, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Your Help Needed

Hi. Since you are an admin, could you take a look at this page and the corresponding talk page. There is another admin who is repeatedly deleting material and tagging the page with malicious notability tags. This isn't an issue necessarily of a "dwarf planet v.s. an asteroid", but you might find some similarities. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! - Catpowerzzz (talk) 22:52, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not going to support Ckatz in this, because he's a complete hypocrite when it comes to deleting tags he doesn't like, but you really shouldn't remove notability or COI tags. Let the discussion evolve through the input of other editors. Let them judge whether he is right in tagging the article. Your info won't be lost; if you like, you can post it on the talk page.

I must say, though, that what you've written sounds like an advertisement rather than a WP article. All the mentions of what the actors have starred in previously, "Academy Award winning film editor", "is best known for", "recent credits include", etc. should be deleted. If people don't know who these people are, they can check the links: that's what the links are for. The article on It Must be Nice should be on It Must be Nice, not on all this other stuff. — kwami (talk) 00:16, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for giving your perspective. Given your history with Ckatz, I understand your reluctance to get involved. By the way, the article was written much more neutral before this version. However, when notability tags are repeatedly and maliciously placed on articles, there seems to be a need to explain notability within the article itself. I believe it is within Wikipedia's scope for an article to be self-contained so that users are not forced to click on every single link to find out who someone is or what something is. It is not advertising to list credits or factual information such as significant awards, such as the Academy Award or Nobel Peace prize. I believe that is significant and relevant information as to the notability, as well as of general interest. I doubt users of Wikipedia want every article to look like a bare stub with tons of tags on it, as the page looks like today after Ckatz reverted it back to nothing again. But thanks again for your perspective. - Catpowerzzz (talk) 17:37, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand me a bit. I would normally support an admin doing what Ckatz has, but I don't have the stomach to support his hypocrisy. His version is much closer to what the article should be, IMO – maybe a little drastic, but close. (The only material of substance that he removed was the bit about where it was filmed, and you can probably work that out.) I've never edited a film article, but read the blurbs on some other films and compare. Our articles are definitely not meant to be self contained: the whole point of an electronic encyclopedia is that they don't need to be. I removed the COI tag, though, as he's already addressed that point. — kwami (talk) 00:07, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for removing the tag. I understand that you may not be as familiar with film articles, but thanks for your wise descretion as an admin. If you get a chance, you might want to revisit the article again. - Catpowerzzz (talk) 18:02, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey. Since you contributed to this page by removing that tag and advising. I thought you should know about [this]. All articles need improving, and I'm sure this one is a candidate. But I think this is pushing their point too far. - Catpowerzzz (talk) 02:05, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't really have an opinion. I figure there's no reason we can't have articles on minor topics, but I suppose we have to draw the line somewhere, and the folks at AFD deal with this every day. — kwami (talk) 02:20, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean?

Re Latin spelling and pronunciation, can yo at least describe what you think is wrong or what you do expect? I explained in the ess and the talkpage, what my improvement is. Just calling words is not clarifying. -DePiep (talk) 03:13, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

As in other articles, Latin words were displayed in small caps. This is good formatting style. Rather than replacing them with full caps, just so you can get rid of the template, it would be better to leave them as-is and place a cleanup tag. It's a lot easier to search for templated text and reformat it than it is to do a manual search after the templating has been deleted. — kwami (talk) 03:16, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for replying, and yes, I could/would have done that right away had I known that earlier (there were MOS hints the other direction). Related: I created {{smallcaps all}} for these situations, based on your improvement in LORD. We might use this in the Latin page ;-) -DePiep (talk) 13:41, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I think Latin's probably fine with {{sm}}, because it's just a formatting issue. I don't think we want it to be forced into caps, either for those who wish to turn off small caps, or for those who cut & paste. LORD/Lord is a lexical difference that needs to be maintained, but we could also use your new template for things like acronyms which need to stay capitalized, but which look bad in full caps. — kwami (talk) 13:53, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Well I won't push it, but as I understand it: in Latin writing lowercase does not exist. So we would prefer to use uc & small caps in the examples & letters: so far so good. But old {{smallcaps}} forces us to use lowercase, and gives lowercase when copy-pasting. The new template would allow us to a. show small caps (still), and b. enter in capitals, and c. produce upercase in copy-paste & non-small caps settings. I don't think any reader would need lower case letters anywhere in Latin writing. (The LORD stuff is dealt with in separate template, good). -DePiep (talk) 14:20, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Latin is often reformatted and repunctuated. I don't think we can guess whether a reader would prefer uc or lc. — kwami (talk) 14:24, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Nonsense. Latin writing is in uppercase. If we write everything all caps in every stage, who would choose lowercase for what? -DePiep (talk) 22:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Nearly all republication of Classical authors is in mixed case. People choose it because it's easier to read. — kwami (talk) 00:13, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't believe you, and it is not consistent. That is why we did all this trouble to get it in (small) caps? These scolars are - well, just scolars. -DePiep (talk) 05:46, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't care whether you believe me. You can look it up. It will take you five minute to confirm what I said. Why even ask me if you don't believe me? — kwami (talk) 00:22, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

First you talked about "WP editors/readers" here, now is has gotten "classical author reproduction(ist)s"? I said it is about the examples & letters here, not full text books. Of course, mixed in line text with modern English, as this WPpage does, switching to unmarked lowercase (by switching of {{smallcaps}} by option) likely is not easier to read. And then we have the non-voluntary switch to non-smallcaps. -DePiep (talk) 09:51, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

No, that's not what you said. And here I can't tell if you're arguing for or against a non-voluntary switch. Are you saying we should change our conventions, or keep them? — kwami (talk) 23:01, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

It is BIDZINA not BORIS.

It is Bidzina not Boris. Why did you reverted the change back? The original birth name is Bidzina not Boris. Are you playing me or what's the problem? Put the Bidzina as a name back and revert your change back! --Georgianჯორჯაძე 23:28, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Don't modify proper names

I noticed that you moved Bangladesh Navy to "Bangladeshi navy" and made similar changes to other Bangladesh armed fores articles. I don't get your rationale. The organization's proper name is Bangladesh Navy. It's NOT "Bangladeshi Navy". The organization uses the name "Bangladesh Navy" in official documents. I'm reverting these edits and unless you can convince the organization to change its name, please don't reinsert the incorrect name. Thanks. --Ragib (talk) 06:28, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems that you made the overzealous "correction" in a large number of articles. In the name of "fixing" grammar, you have just introduced incorrect names for all of these organizations where you "corrected" "Bangladesh" to "Bangladeshi". Please fix these ASAP. I'm assuming good faith here, please fix the mistake you have introduced.

FYI, there is NO org named "Bangladeshi Coast Guard" or "Bangladeshi Air force". The proper and official and commonly used names of these organizations are "Bangladesh Coast Guard" and "Bangladesh Air force". You cannot change an organization's name. --Ragib (talk) 06:35, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Fixing double redirects

Hi. When moving templates with literally thousands of transclusions, please make sure to fix double redirects immediately,[8] because it goofs up the formatting on some high profile pages. Magog the Ogre (talk) 03:38, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I was confused by one of the complications of that! — kwami (talk) 03:40, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Template:sc

There is no need to change Template:sc to Template:sm or template:page number to template:page needed see Wikipedia:Redirect -- PBS (talk) 09:52, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Bad move {{smallcaps all}}

Kwami, I object to the move from {{smallcaps all}} to {{hard smallcaps}} you did today. You did not discuss it, while you could have sensed that it might be disputed. I request you undo the move and seek consensus first. -DePiep (talk) 16:43, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Uh, it's just a name, and the old name did not capture the purpose of the template. Any particular reason you object?

Also, the template does not work for all browsers. See here. — kwami (talk) 23:21, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

As I asked, revert and follow due process. I have declared it controversial. You know what that means. (This recent action by you, while this was in process, was even more disturbing). In both cases you used admin privileges to push a point. The tech issue you mention is irrelevant to the move. -DePiep (talk) 16:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Looks like you're back to making demands rather than entering discussion, so I'm back to ignoring you. If you want it moved, ask someone else. — kwami (talk) 16:14, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes. This is not about discussion afterwards. You were supposed to start a talk beforwards. As simple as that. -DePiep (talk) 22:45, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Diasystem

I have recently gotten into a bit of a spat with another editor, Dale Chock at Talk:Diasystem. The long and the short of it is that Dale has removed content that I think is worth keeping. It hasn't gotten disruptive, but I can see that Dale has a vested interest in portraying me as incompetent so that he can dismiss my position. The presence of a mediator doesn't seem to have an effect on this. Do you think you could help out and participate in the discussion? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 15:28, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

ISO Codes

Hi kwami, I didn't say there aren't ISO codes - I just didn't add them yet. Thanks for putting them in. — Stevey7788 (talk) 22:46, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I copied and pasted the infoboxes from somewhere else, and didn't realize that they all said "none." — Stevey7788 (talk) 07:29, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Diasystem article

The idea of you, or anyone else, reverting an article because you are annoyed with the editor, not because you object to the content!! Get a grip on yourself. And read what you call "diatribe" before you make determinations--don't deliberately take action without listening to all sides. Additionally, I invite you to read my short note, posted minutes ago, in reply to your threat. Re:Diasystem Dale Chock (talk) 00:03, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

No, I will not read your diatribe. Too-long-won't-read, beside it being utterly ridiculous. Present a concise, rational argument on the topic, not a rant against another editor. — kwami (talk) 00:07, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Ryukyu/Nansei interwikis

What the fuck happened?—Ryulong (竜龙) 02:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Re: Ryukyus

Oh~ Sorry. You are right in France and German. However, Chinese "琉球群岛" means Ryukyu Islands in English. It includes the islands in Kagoshima. --alberth2 02:46, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

But if you read the article, you'll see that there is also one on zh:南西群島. — kwami (talk) 02:47, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

zh:琉球群岛 and zh:南西群島 are write for the same islands. 琉球群岛 is traditional name in Chinese, and the name of zh:南西群島 was built from Japanese. Because some Chinese like to use Japan word to Chinese word. Chinese word and Japanese word are similar. In Chinese Wikipedia, we have discussed if we should merge these 2 articles. However, we still cannot take a consensus. --alberth2 02:54, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay, but meanwhile the IW's need to reflect the status quo. If 琉球群岛 is going to IW here, then it can't IW to any of the dedicated 琉球 articles; also, 南西群島 should not IW here, or to any WP article which does. — kwami (talk) 02:57, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Japanese name	English name	Chinese name
南西諸島	Ryukyu Islands	琉球群島
琉球諸島	???	In Chinese, there are the name to mean these islands

I wish zh:琉球群岛 can interwiki Ryukyu_Islands and zh:南西群島 does not interwiki. --alberth2 03:07, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your help in these interwiki link. --alberth2 03:13, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Move of Proto-Indo-European numerals

Hi! Could you tell me the reason for moving Proto-Indo-European numerals to Proto-Indo-European numbers (and English numerals to English numbers)? As far as I'm aware, a number is a mathematical concept while a numeral is a word expressing a number. The latter article says "In linguistics, number names (or numerals) are specific words in a natural language that represent numbers." Is that wrong? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 07:27, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

The root words are numerals (ten, sixty, etc). Numeral is a part of speech, like noun or verb; numbers are either numerals, compounds of numerals (sixty-three), or other quantity words like "dozen" or "gross". The cardinal section deals with the numerals, but the ordinal section lists adjectives. However, it goes into so little detail that you're right, the article is essentially about IE numerals. I moved it because in the article itself they're called numbers, and the prefix and ordinal section do not deal with numerals. No big deal if you want to move it back.

The English article is about the entire number system, not about numerals. I don't think 'numeral' would be appropriate there.

I see our article, which you linked to, says that in linguistics, a 'numeral' is any word that indicates a definite quantity. That's not how I learned it, and most of the examples in that article are actually other parts of speech, mostly nouns. — kwami (talk) 07:42, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

BTW, I have sources which say *ǵʰeslo- cannot be reconstructed for pIE. — kwami (talk) 07:49, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

By all means include your information about *ǵʰeslo-.

I've no problem with the new title, I just didn't know about the number/numeral distinction. (By the way, I've grown a bit careful with things I've learned. I thought I knew what opiate meant until a discussion on dewiki came to the conclusion that the term is used in different ways by different people. So, a source would be great, but I'll believe you as a linguist even without one :-)

What do you think the leads should be? Having "numbers" in the title and "numerals" in the first sentence sounds a bit confusing. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 15:55, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Maybe 'numerals and derived numbers'? Now that I'm looking, I can't find a clear distinction in my sources, except that 'numeral' is a part of speech. I've left a question at the 'numeral' article, which I'll start rewriting per my sources if no-one answers. — kwami (talk) 22:09, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

'Numerals and derived numbers' sounds fine to me. I've added it to PIE numbers. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 16:07, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

(if you do not object), here is a link to your question (for the convenience of our colleagues that will look for it here). Sasha (talk) 05:11, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Put BIDZINA on Boris Ivanishvili

Come to the talk page of the Boris Ivanishvili, asap!

Tai sub-branching

See Talk:Tai languages.

Pittayaporn's tree is still a very provisional, and "iffy," one, though there is probably a lot of truth to it simply because there's more data available in 2009 than in, say, the 1970's. In the academic literature, "Yongnan" is never referred to as a branch that includes Northern Tai, but rather as one of the 13 dialect groupings of Zhuang that can be subsumed under one of the three primary branches of Tai. Zuojiang Zhuang languages and Chongzuo Tai languages should also be redirected or deleted. Instead, there should be an article on Central Tai languages, since that is a well-accepted grouping.

Central Tai is not supported by Pittayaporn, but nearly all prior publications in the field of comparative Tai linguistics support or assume the existence of Central Tai. Thus, Central Tai merits an article far more than the newly made-up Chongzuo Tai, Zuojiang Zhuang, and Yongnan.

The following articles are unsound, and should be redirected to a new article on the Central Tai languages.

• Chongzuo Tai languages
• Zuojiang Zhuang languages
• Yongnan languages

— Stevey7788 (talk) 08:41, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

The latter two have ISO codes, and so are relevant if only for that reason. I think Pittayaporn would argue that Central Tai is not sound.

I restructured the Yongnan article so as to not imply that it's the name of a branch of Tai. Zuojiang already read that way. The Chongzuo article is clear that it's specific to Pittayaporn. If you have a preference for a different name, let us know. — kwami (talk) 08:48, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Notice of Wikiquette Assistance discussion

Hello, Kwamikagami. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.Nobody Ent 22:33, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Asana IPA

I noticed you added the IPA for the pronunciation of the asanas. I hid a lot of the nonIPA pronunciation on other asana articles. I'm not sure if you knew this. But if you didn't, it would be a great help if you can help with those articles as well. ThanksCurb Chain (talk) 04:52, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

No, I wasn't aware of that. I don't know how these words are pronounced, and just happened to find one of them. The problem is distinguishing an English pronunciation from a Hindi or allegedly Sanskrit pronunciation being passed off as English. But if you have specific articles in mind, I'll see what I can do. — kwami (talk) 05:00, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I have unhidden all the IPA pronunciations (they actually come with citations). I would say the closest pronunciation to the original use of the name would should be transliterated. I think we should use sanskrit pronunciation of the affixes/prefixes. Failing that, we should use hindi, and lastly, english. Thanks for your help. I apprciate your expertise of IPA.

Do you need a list of articles?Curb Chain (talk) 22:43, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

No, I can use your list of edits from today.

You mean the non-IPA pronunciations. The problem is that they are neither Sanskrit, nor Hindi, nor English. Now, given the Nagari, I can work out the Hindi; I could even work out the Sanskrit if you clarified where the stress goes. (Our Sanskrit article does not cover that.) But I couldn't give an English pronunciation. — kwami (talk) 04:38, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I am currently templating the pronunciations into {{respell}}. They actually have citations. Could you add the IPA?Curb Chain (talk) 08:44, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I left a reply on User talk:DePiep#Reconsilication.Curb Chain (talk) 11:26, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Brahmi Script

Hello Kwamikagami!

Why did you removed my edits? It's against wikipedia's laws. WP:WEIGHT don't apply there as, I have presented the important ideas of some of the great scholars of our time like S. R. Rao, N. S. Rajaram, Mahadevan, etc.

An article should be neutral. The Indus Script derival isn't as stupid as flat earth or something similar. I is based upon solid proves.

I am a Brahmi experts and use it in many purposes. I'm also studying Indus script since two years and Vedic civilization since last 6 years. Also, I want to tell you that there are many(20+) indus symbols which totally resembles Brahmi! What I think is Indus Script slowly evolved into Brahmi Script. S. R. Rao's experiment with Semitic script shows that it was also derived from Indus script and this means relation between Brahmi and Aramaic is because of common ancestor. But nonetheless, wikipedia should show neutral view point. So all major views should be included. It's very important for Wikipedia. Wikipedia should be neutral of scholarly schools.

What ever I have presented are very important to complete the topic.

It's my request please don't further delete my editing before discussing at Talk Page of Brahmi.

Thank You in advance for cooperating.

Yours Sincerely, --Leodescal (Harshvardhan) (talk) 05:42, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:WEIGHT applies everywhere, and Wikipedia convention actually works the other way: You need to present your reasoning on the talk page. The idea that Brahmi derives from Indus script is quite controversial, and might even qualify as WP:fringe. — kwami (talk) 05:48, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Brahmi derives from Aramaic is even more controversial as one of the first advocates of it like Max Muller was commissioned by English East India Company and it was a part of Anti Indian conspiracy. S. R. Rao is found Drawikia and Indus seals there. And what about about 20 Indus symbols which are exactly as Brahmi symbols and many more Indus symbols which looks similar to Indus symbols? Natwar Jha is a great sanskrit scholar and worked 20 years on it and found readings to be sanskritic. S. R. rao didn't have any pre-justice in his mind and got sanskrit readings.

They aryan invasion theory is itself controversial. There have been many proves which are absolutely against it. Actually both Aramaic and Indus Script derivals are equally controversial and each side claims that there reading is more scientific and better. It's a kind of dispute rather than unclearness because both sides believe that there theory clears everything.

Also do you know Brahmi?

Waiting for your replys...

Yours Sincerely --117.199.112.24 (talk) 08:57, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

The Aramaic hypothesis, or at least the Semitic hypothesis, is the closest to consensus. And when you start talking about "conspiracies", a little warning bell goes off, saying "crackpot!"—crackpots are constantly saying that their ideas aren't accepted because of a "conspiracy". That's not a good way to make an argument!

I'm modestly familiar with Brahmi. — kwami (talk) 08:59, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

See, it's crystal clear that Aramaic theory isn't a consensus now. Nor is the Indus theory. S. R. Rao's reading got very good responses from both east and the west. And it is a known truth that Aryan ( Hindu ) and Dravidianism are strong political forces in India. Actually peoples were commissioned by British to divide Indians. There was a huge race of scholars to prove the foreign source of at least one community, Aryan or Dravidian so that they could be said 'two' different communities. First they tried with Dravidians. They said Dravidians came from some legendary 'now lost' continent. When they saw Indus Civilization, they said Aryans are outsiders!

I have a incident of Wheeler. He didn't even knew the Vedic Sanskrit. I have his conversion with Wakankar.

Though I am honest that Aramaic theory still have more acceptance than Indus one. But instead to removing the Indus theory which is very significant because of a simple fact that it's believed by almost all the Hindutva scholars and millions of Hindutva activists, WE can show that Indus Script theory is now getting more support but the older Aramaic theory is still have more votes.

Your help would be excellent! Also, if you know brahmi, can you please writing something in it in your language and upload it's image? I am also doing the same. I'll writing something in Hindi and Sanskrit. It would look nice to have pics of modern use of Brahmi too.

Now I'll go back and show that Aramaic have more acceptance than the Indus one. Also I recommend you to study Indus Script too if you have time. Mahadevan's, S. R. Rao's and Jha-Rajaram's works are good. Though I consider Jha-Rajaram's work to be best. But none are perfect.

Yours Sincerely, Leodescal (Harshvardhan) (talk) 09:10, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

You admit that this is a political rather than academic issue. I'm sorry, but that has no place on Wikipedia. No, the Indus hypothesis should not be removed, but it should follow WEIGHT, disregarding political motivations.

As for Aryans being "outsiders", the same people say that Europeans are "outsiders", with only the Basques being native.

I don't see the point of trying to write English in Brahmi. I could make an ad hoc match, but neither the consonants nor the vowels vowels fit very well. — kwami (talk) 09:24, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I would be editing the page so that Indus hyopthesis don't seems to have any more weight than it deserves. But before removing that, please complete the discussion at Brahmi Script page.

A very significant number of scholars vote for Indus theory. I would say majority of North Indian scholars. It is almost equally significant.

Today you can not say that Aramaic hypothesis have more support. It be a lie if we say Aramaic hypothesis is dominant. It isn't. Today scholars are reviewing the history of South East Asia. And great scholars like S.R. Rao is supporting Indus Script is indigenous and it greatly influence the Semitic scripts and because of this(common ancestor) there is relation between Brahmi and Aramaic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leodescal (talk • contribs) 09:45, 5 March 2012 (UTC) Leodescal (Harshvardhan) (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:28, 5 March 2012 (UTC).

Final Discussion

I have present my statements here- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Brāhmī_script#Keep_Indus_Origin

Also, I'm not the one who is the reason of edit war, you again and again removed a well cited work without proper discussion with me and other members. Nonetheless, now decison would be taken according to the discussion of people it at the Brahmi talk page. I have provided all the solid reasons to stop removing my work else it would be a kind of vandalism.

--Leodescal (Harshvardhan) (talk) 13:32, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

You have not provided any reliable sources, and have admitted that you have a political agenda. Neither are appropriate. However, if I've misjudged the situation, the discussion should clarify that. I've notified the language and writing-system groups. — kwami (talk) 22:00, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Hope you don't mind the copy pasted message.....

Just checked the recent changes, and lucky for you, your name came to the top of the list. Anyway, I need help. I just created this account, been editing from IP's, and all I ask for is to edit protected pages. But I can't. I need someone to solve this problem for me. Can you help me out? AvampostoVeneziano (talk) 21:49, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Lucky me!

Answered on your page. — kwami (talk) 22:05, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I made a request at...at the page you request things. You know what I mean. Don't suppose you know of any administrators who like granting permissions to barely qualified new users, do you? ;) *cough* *cough* AvampostoVeneziano (talk) 22:08, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar

Hi there, I noticed that you edited an article that I created (Chay Shegog) and edited the pronunciation. I am a Shegog myself. I'm not bothered about your change at all. The emphasis is how you wrote it so shi-GOG. I noticed that you have done some stuff related to American Indians on Wikipedia. Are you of Native American descent? I've done some research and there is some evidence to suggest that the name Shegog is taken from zhigaag (so like Chicago with two g's and no 'o') which means skunk in the Ojibwe language. But all Shegog's I know pronounce it with a short -og similar to dog. Thanks, Shegan AGirl1191 (talk) 04:16, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I take it you mean I got it right?

No, I'm not.

Hm, maybe that's a name best left untranslated! Even if they are awfully cute. — kwami (talk) 04:20, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Yup. It's correct. I didn't know whether to leave the She or put Shi since I've heard Chay pronounce it Shi-gog with a very short sh rather than a she. Oh, and about the translation. Apparently skunks were actually revered for their healing powers by the Ojibwe people and they used to use mammals to nickname people within the tribe. Shegan AGirl1191

Oh, I like skunks, and wouldn't mind being named for one in theory, but the English word has pretty negative connotations. — kwami (talk) 04:33, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Mistake by me?

Hello Kwami.

Yesterday I moved "US–Algerian relations" to "Algeria–United States relations", fixing all templates and double redirects. I did so before realizing that the page recently had been moved in the other direction. Is there a new consensus over the naming convention for these "X–Y relations" pages?

Cheers

HandsomeFella (talk) 07:48, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

No, no mistake. I brought this up and several people have said that what you moved to is bad style, and in many cases violates WP:TITLE, but it's how most of the other articles are named and we didn't come to any conclusion to recommend the other format. — kwami (talk) 20:25, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok (phew). So I don't move it back, then? HandsomeFella (talk) 20:29, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

No no, you're fine. If we move, it would be more formal and affect thousands of articles. — kwami (talk) 20:52, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Hello Kwami

Hello my friend:

I have been VERY busy moving 450 miles away, and therefore, haven't been online for a while. GOD, HOW I DEEPLY AND BROADLY HATE THIS MOVING STUFF! :-O

Now that I've ALMOST got this move whipped into submission, I thought I'd drop in here at WP and fix a few typos for a couple minutes before bed. In doing so, I happened to see your name on my Talk Page, and since I hadn't said hello (or cussed you) for a few months, I decided I'd surprise you and stop by to say "Hello Kwami - hope things are going well for you and your loved ones".

Also, while I was waiting on my coffee to brew, I just thought I'd leave you a tiny expression of my EXTREME admiration for your TREMENDOUS expertise and thanks for your NEAR-PEERLESS efforts vis-a-vis this INCREDIBLY worthy project!

God bless - talk to you later!

Regards: Cliff (a/k/a "Uploadvirus") (talk) 07:51, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Kwamikagami, PLEASE don't make me admit you were right all along, and/or that I DRAMATICALLY over-reacted! All I have left in this world is my pride in being completely and absolutely PERFECT! :-O

In fact, prior to meeting you, I once THOUGHT I might have been wrong, but then was quite relieved later to discover that I was only MISTAKEN! :-)

Your friend:

Cliff (a/k/a "Uploadvirus") (talk) 11:36, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Wazir

Hello, Kwamikagami. The article Wazir seems to need some editing to tidy it up, but I'm not sure how to fix it. Could you help? Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 21:32, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Gave it a shot. — kwami (talk) 01:33, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Image licensing for PD books

On wikimedia commons, what license should I use for images of pages from public domain books? Should I use an ordinary PD-old template? There are images from out of copyright books that I want to uploadRund Van (talk) 04:39, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I believe that should work. But Commons has a tendency to delete things regardless, so if I were you I'd also upload then to WP-en as well, and tag them as 'keep local copy'. — kwami (talk) 06:27, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Reverting Yucatec phonology section

I think you were a little hasty to do that. I can't vouch for whether that info was good or not, but it was clearly good-faith, and a flat revert without discussing it on talk seems mighty harsh. Homunq (talk) 13:57, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Usually I would agree but this actually looked like a hoax, since the included inventory was quite far from Mayan phonology. We have had examples of ip editors inserting fake inventories into artciles on Mexican languages in obvious bad faith, so in this situation I think a simple revert is ok. If the Ip asks for an explanation we should of course provide one amicably.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:29, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Ngadjuri people

I see that you've added that word, "people" which in my mind is self evident so I'm wondering then what the rationale is? Especially as I see it seems you are a professional Linguist? Kind regards Matthew (talk) 15:00, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

It's common on Wikipedia to have separate articles for a people and their language. Homunq (talk) 20:27, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

There are already five incoming links to Ngadjuri language. There's a philosophical difference in reading WP:AT: one side says that if there is no actual article title at a competing name, you put the existing article at the simple form; I prefer to have an unambiguous name regardless, imagining what we would have (and eventually probably will have) as WP becomes more complete. — kwami (talk) 22:06, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I went ahead and created a stub. — kwami (talk) 22:09, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Bu language

Saluton, estas Ĉiuĵaŭde el Esperanta Vikipedio. Ĝuste por konfirmi viajn informojn (estas devigita ĉi tie), aldonu referencojn. Vi povos forpreni la ŝablonon poste.

---

Hi, it's Ĉiuĵaŭde from Wikipedia in Esperanto. Just to confirm your informations by addition of references (it's important here). You will can delete the template after.

Kore, Eofren (parler/diskuti/talk) 01:17, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Jam troviĝas referenco al Ethnologue. — kwami (talk) 01:21, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Ne forgesu aldoni la referencojn en artikoloj. Mi scias ke vi prenis la informoj el Ethnologue, sed vi devas aldoni ĝin. Eofren (parler/diskuti/talk) 01:27, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

La ligilo estas tie, kiel en aliaj lingvaj artikoloj. — kwami (talk) 01:32, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

End of patience

Kwami, I just reverted your sandboxing-in-live-code thing. [9]. To be short, and there is no use spending long time explaining anything to you the long way: stop behaving like this. You might be an admin (how to get rid of that btw?), but this WP is not your sandbox. You may be an admin, and will win every battle that way in ANI, but still your editing behaviour is disruptive. Just joint the Talks, please. As everyone does. -DePiep (talk) 01:57, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

"End of patience"? Since when have you had any patience?

You apparently have either no understanding of or no concern for other people who use WP. Go away. — kwami (talk) 03:04, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Kwamikagami, I think you do what you want. Wikipedia is a free encyclopedy for everyone, not your kingdom. No admins do what you do. You have to change or you will be blocked here. With all my serious, Eofren (parler/diskuti/talk) 15:39, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

You're being ridiculous. You don't even know what this dispute is about: Someone complained that the template was inaccessible to those with vision problems, and I tried to accommodate. DePiep, as usual, had a fit. But yeah, I'll be blocked for trying to follow WP policy. — kwami (talk) 20:20, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Ugaritic alphabet

In the course of trying to improve the content of that page and make it more specific I think I've pretty directly made it worse (through inadvertent instigation). I don't know if you have any interest, but would you mind taking a look at the most recent edits and the (convoluted) talk page? Michael Sheflin (talk) 18:05, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll take a look. — kwami (talk) 20:21, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I started reading the discussion and never got through it. But at least it looks like a constructive discussion. — kwami (talk) 01:11, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Kwamikagami. You have new messages at Talk:Bengali phonology.
Message added 18:08, 10 March 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

» nafSadh did say 18:08, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Small caps templates

Hello, Kwamikagami. You have new messages at OwenBlacker's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Template:Infobox language

I have already addressed your concerns. As I said in my edit summary, {{{name|Language name}}} is used as the header name of it, and the many repeats of | '''{{{name}}}''' I removed are NOT the header name.

Another reason I did this is because a user had come into the WP:IRC wikipedia help channel, #wikipedia-en-help ^connect, and said he saw that, and could not find how to remove the redundant copies of the name. (as a side note, I also found them redundant and even misplaced.)

Is your reason still not solved by this? (also, if you wish to keep them there, which I find redundant to do so, please make sure you do something about the spacing used for where they are.)

Also, I am usually on IRC if you wish to talk to me via PM. Thanks. LikeLakers2 (talk | Sign my guestbook!) 15:49, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi,

I don't know what you mean by 'spacing'.

Yes, I understand the repeat does not appear in the header. Nonetheless, we've had consensus for years to use it as well, so I think you should at least discuss it before removing it. You may find it redundant, but I find it clearer this way. It also matches the format of the language family box. — kwami (talk) 01:01, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok. as I said, I had done it partially because a user had complained about it, and, as you know, I saw it as redundant, and removed it. Usually, with these types of things, I don't usually check the talk page.

Also, may I ask for a link to the place where consensus was found to keep it that way? Thanks. LikeLakers2 (talk | Sign my guestbook!) 18:46, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

The page is the page itself. It's been that way for years (since 2005), and no-one has complained anywhere that I can see. Where is the consensus to change it? — kwami (talk) 19:41, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Well the better question is: Where is the consensus to have that there? And besides "...and no-one has complained anywhere that I can see" is contradiction at its best, as you and I both know that the IRC user and me both had a problem with it. If you cannot show me a link to a section where it says that, I see no consensus where they agreed about this.

Might I add that just because a part of the page for years does NOT always mean that it should stay that way? LikeLakers2 (talk | Sign my guestbook!) 20:10, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, you've got it backwards. If you want the change, it's up to you to demonstrate a consensus to change. If you were to go around deleting articles like Earth because there's been no discussion to keep them, you'd be blocked for vandalism. No-one would buy the argument that they need to first have a discussion for the articles to be kept.

I know nothing of the sort. You're the one who says there is a problem, but you have not given any reason to think there actually is a problem. There's nothing at the link you provided. — kwami (talk) 20:18, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Some things you should know:

1. What I am getting from your first point is: "So you, an administrator, have permission to go around willy-nilly, doing whatever you want, and you can't get in trouble; while I have to get consensus on everything? If so, I must have misread WP:CONSENSUS."
2. I am not an administrator, and given my past, and that I don't want to be, I doubt I ever will be an sysop.
3. Yet another contradiction on you part. First you say that there has been consensus to have the layout the way it is, then you go and say that you know absolutely nothing about where the discussion was, therefore basically saying it as if there was no consensus in the first place.
4. I told you, both me and the irc user saw that as redundant and unneccesary.
5. What do you mean, there is nothing at the link I provided? The only link related to the topic at hand is in the header of this section.

At this point, after I tried being nice, I am starting to get the idea that you probably don't want to do the same. Don't get me wrong, I am probably misunderstanding something, but I don't see your replies as nice as much. (I am trying to keep from getting to a certain point where my replies won't be as (to put it nicely) well-worded) LikeLakers2 (talk | Sign my guestbook!) 20:48, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

(3) Okay, you obviously don't know what is meant by "consensus" here on WP. Please read WP:Consensus#Achieving consensus. Consensus was established in 2005, and AFAICT has held ever since.

(1) You're accusing me of acting like you? There's a rather impolite term for that. You might want to read WP:BOLD for how the editing process is expected to work.

(5) You linked to the IRC channel to justify your edit. However, it is not an archive of the discussion you had, but an active chat page, and so is worthless as a link. — kwami (talk) 21:02, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh please, you both. It is just a technical change, so (1) one should create examples at {{Infobox language/testcases}}, that show curent usage. Then (2), create a {{Infobox language/sandbox}} with new, edited code, and (3) make parallel /sandbox examples in the /testpage.

After a first glance into the code & edits, I'd say Kwami is right to expect same result of a changed template, and LikeLakers2 is right that the code can be simplified into less repetition. Meet you at /testcases. DePiep (talk) 20:59, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

It's not just a technical change, but a change in display format. If he can simplify the code, great. No-one would object to that. — kwami (talk) 21:02, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Heh, its like the best way to get rid of me is to say I should do this or that with the template. lol LikeLakers2 (talk | Sign my guestbook!) 15:28, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I have build a proposal on the color-detail of the template. Please take a look at Template_talk:Infobox_language#Edit_request (family-color) -DePiep (talk) 15:05, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Adjective Declension

Finally a Wikipedian with the senses to eliminate the infamy of "Japanese Adjective Declesion"! Thank the immortal gods! Thanks for the move :) regards from an -- Anonymous Coward 129.199.158.95 (talk) 00:23, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

IPA on D&D

Sorry about that, I didn't notice your first message when you posted it on my talk page, but I see it now (I probably missed the orange box because other people use computers on this IP, but hardly anyone else edits Wikipedia that I have noticed).

I haven't mastered IPA usage yet, but I am learning. I noticed that when I used {{pron-en}}, you or someone else would come along and clean up my work. I know that {{need-IPA}} will eventually get a response, but that might be weeks or months in coming. If I use {{IPA-en}} will anyone "check my work" to make sure I got it right?

I am going through an old pronunciation guide which has a huge list of names and words from the game and how to pronounce them, and there are other sources I will get to eventually, but I don't want to overburden anyone so I have been going slowly. Sorry if I have caused any trouble. 129.33.19.254 (talk) 15:13, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

OK thanks. If you don't mind then, I will send you periodic lists as I make progress. If you ever get annoyed, you can tell me to piss off and I will just do it on my own.  :) I will try to follow closer to the format you have used when you make the corrections to the ones I added, to keep things simpler.

Thanks! 129.33.19.254 (talk) 15:37, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I had some free time today, so I did a few if you want to check them: Bahamut (Dungeons & Dragons), Baku (Dungeons & Dragons), Balor (Dungeons & Dragons), Banderlog, Groaning spirit, and Baphomet (Dungeons & Dragons). 129.33.19.254 (talk) 00:42, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, the source I'm using is pretty clear on whether the "a" is supposed to be the 'cat' vowel or the 'spa' vowel - I didn't know how to represent this in the respell, but see the Baku link above for how I did it in the IPA. 129.33.19.254 (talk) 16:16, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I've done a few more this week, if you want to check them out for me: Barghest (Dungeons & Dragons), Bar-lgura, Basilisk (Dungeons & Dragons), Behir, Belial (Dungeons & Dragons), Berbalang, Nalfeshnee#‎Description, and Blibdoolpoolp. 129.33.19.254 (talk) 00:08, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I did a few more: Boalisk, Boccob, Bodak, Boobrie (Dungeons & Dragons), Bubonix, Bulette, and Burneal Forest. 129.33.19.254 (talk) 23:36, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Afroasiatic groups

Hi, Kwami, Yeah, glad to see you lean toward "branch". Personally I am glad to listen to arguments that this or that branch of AA needs to be broken up or combined with another but so far most of them seem to be holding up fairly well.

With regard to whether Egyptian is "extinct" or "dead" or exactly what, you raise an interesting question.

There was a news report in 2007 that one or two Egyptian women had surfaced in a remote village who claimed to still speak fluent Coptic (referenced under Coptic language and Egyptian language). It's not implausible, though the report obviously needs to be verified by a competent linguist - which so far as I know has not happened. I would really, really like to see someone follow this up - maybe we can publicize it somehow? I mean, actual living continuity of Egyptian would be really cool. Some people are concerned Coptic may be so Greek it's not really Egyptian anymore, but it's no more Hellenized than English is Gallicized, so far as I have noticed.

The interesting question I referred to though is what to do more generally with languages like Latin, Sanskrit, Classical Tibetan, and Classical Arabic, etc. that have served as literary / scholarly languages with an unbroken tradition and have never really died, although they have long since passed out of the colloquial register. Prior to its revival in the 20th century Hebrew also belonged to this category. These are not precisely dead languages, I would say, but formal registers that have been frozen, to some extent or other, in morphology and idiom - the pronunciation usually continues to evolve, to judge by the plethora of national pronunciations of Latin in Europe.

These languages shade over into liturgical languages that are still used in worship - in unbroken tradition, too - but are not used as scholarly languages or not much: Coptic, Avestan, Pahlavi.... I expect it's hard to draw a bright line between these two categories.

And I'm not even going into the problem you raise of languages like Old English that are no longer intelligible without special study but have living descendants. English is living, but is Old English (which was certainly called English, though spelled Englisc prior to the Norman Conquest)?

It seems to me the contrast between "living" and "dead" languages dichotomizes a much more complex and shaded situation and that we need some vocabulary to more adequately express reality in this regard. But I admit I don't have any solutions on hand right away.

Regards, VikSol (talk) 18:42, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

PS- Maybe the term already exists. Latin and Ancient Greek are the "Classical" languages; literary Arabic is "Classical Arabic"; Old Tibetan (extinct) is continued without too much change by "Classical Tibetan"; the artificially archaic and universal inscriptional language of the Mayans was "Classic Maya"; etc. So it seems the term "Classical" (variant "Classic") is already in use as a practical matter and merely needs to be generalized.

We could then distinguish "living" languages, e.g. modern English and modern Japanese, "Classical" languages, like Sanskrit and Classical Tibetan, and "dead" languages, like Akkadian. Although even "dead" languages often leave a considerable repository of borrowed concepts and vocabulary in other languages, so I'm not sure they're quite dead.

Less living than "Classical" languages are "liturgical languages" (as we might call them), like Coptic.

What do you think? VikSol (talk) 19:50, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Maybe we could have a third possibility for the header: "Era spoken"? I raised this at the languages project once but didn't get much response. Currently we have "Native speakers" for extant languages, and "Extinct" for typical extinct languages. We could maybe have a switch in the table code, where if we enter 'extinct' as the number of speakers, the date switches from attestation date to extinction date; some other keyword for 'era', and then a 'children' list as with language families, for descendents?

I'm doubtful about the Egyptian, but yeah, that would be cool. Just having all the vowels would be nice, even if they've changed a lot. — kwami (talk) 22:57, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

D'oh! I already provided for an 'era' box. See how Egyptian reads to you now. — kwami (talk) 03:21, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

New articles

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		Thanks for your recent run of newly-created language articles, and for your efforts to improve the encyclopedia. Northamerica1000(talk) 17:28, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Let me know if there's an area you think could use work. — kwami (talk) 22:30, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Whoah. You're still around and still producing top notch stuff — probably only gotten better. If I would have to pick any user as the absolute definition of dream editor, it would be you. You are amazing. — mark ✎ 03:03, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Hm, not what I've been hearing lately! Think I need to work on my diplomacy. But thanks. — kwami (talk) 06:06, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

LMFAO!!! <== Pardon my lapse into the non-recognized dialect ("Textese"). Mark, trust me - you ain't seen nothin' yet! Master Kwami and I have fought several BRUTAL and BLOODY bouts of endurance using a diverse array of weapons - brains and keyboards, clubs, sticks, and stones ... and I once damn near pulled a .357 Magnum on him! But WOW - I certainly do echo the Tireless Editor Barnstar, and the quality remark as well, so I also hope the #$%^&* keeps it up! Cliff (a/k/a "Uploadvirus") (talk) 14:16, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Tan Boon Teik

I don't understand the "Which is it?" tag you've placed on "Tan Boon Teik". Can you explain? Thanks. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:05, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

The two transcriptions disagree. Is the oo in Boon the sound in food, or in foot? — kwami (talk) 22:01, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Oops. I think it is closer to foot. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:14, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Uh, if you say "closer", then that makes me think you're talking about the Chinese pronunciation. But we're discussing the English pronunciation here. It either *is* the vowel of food, or it's the vowel of foot – it can't be "closer". — kwami (talk) 08:18, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm trying to think whether I would pronounce Boon more like food or like foot, but honestly I am struggling a bit to see the difference. That's why I said it was closer to foot, because I think the "oo" sound in Boon is shorter than in food. I don't know the pronunciation in Hokkien (I suspect it is a Hokkien, or possibly a Teochew, name). — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:48, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Dative/Accusative versus Oblique

Hey Kwami,

I've just altered your recent (understandable) edit to English grammar pronoun listings from oblique to a newly created article for Dative/Accusative as not a separate case but rather the conflation of cases it actually is (which would be likewise the reason it's not an 'objective case' either). I believe the new article more clearly represents the actual situation in languages such as English without purporting a separate case as unique to English nor with assigning a structurally similar case (oblique) from a different language system. Good call in catching the original mislabelled objective. The use of that objective case moniker tends to lead to quite a few problems when people get into deeper levels of analysis in English as the dual-case awareness that it takes away leaves lots of potential information missing or at the least overlooked. (please see related talk pages and feel free to add content or links to the new article as desired) CheersDrew.ward (talk) 17:05, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

An oblique case would in no way be unique, and I don't think a dual-case analysis is accurate. That may be historically what happened, but it's now a single case. It's also used for many things besides objects of verbs: it's used for objects of prepositions, emphatis, and equatives. Although "oblique case" is different from an oblique object (as in he envied me my X), it's the term used for English in generative grammar. In Crystal's dict. he contrasts it with Latin nominative. (I thought "oblique" had a different use in Latin.) His def. in full:

oblique (adj.) (obl, OBL) In languages which express grammatical relationships by means of inflections, this term refers to the form taken by a noun phrase (often a single noun or pronoun) when it refers collectively to all the case forms of a word except that of the unmarked case, or nominative.

Except for the genitive, that's what we have in English. — kwami (talk) 19:00, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

List of adjectivals and demonyms of astronomical bodies

This is a history of section heading levels in the article List of adjectivals and demonyms of astronomical bodies.

• At 18:29, 29 August 2011, I changed section levels to make subsections in List of adjectival and demonymic forms of place names.
• At 16:10, 16 February 2012, User:Snotbot "fixed section headings (task 5)".
• At 17:07, 16 February 2012, I "Undid revision 477203489 by Snotbot (talk)"—See hidden comment: "Section levels have been adjusted to make subsections in List of adjectival and demonymic forms of place names."
• At 07:18, 18 March 2012, User:Niceguyedc revised the heading levels, leaving the edit summary "(WP:Cleaner (v1.13) Reference before punctuation - Headlines start with three "=" and later with level two (Fixed using WP:WCW)".

It seems to me that the article might do better if it were not transcluded at List of adjectival and demonymic forms of place names. It can still be listed there as an internal link under "See also", and vice versa.
—Wavelength (talk) 02:49, 19 March 2012 (UTC) and 03:07, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, you could always do that, but there might be some other way, such adding a commented-out '===' before each section. You could ask at the talk page of Snotbot. — kwami (talk) 03:24, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. Subsequently, I made the following changes.

• At 16:36, 19 March 2012, I removed the transcluded "Astronomy" section from List of adjectival and demonymic forms of place names.
• At 16:39, 19 March 2012, I added a link to List of adjectival and demonymic forms of place names.
• At 16:48, 19 March 2012, I removed the hidden comment and revised the heading levels in List of adjectivals and demonyms of astronomical bodies.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:03, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Page notice of Mutual intelligibility

Hi Kwami. The page notice at Mutual intelligibility contains the following statement "Several language pairs have been repeatedly removed from this page and there is currently consensus not to list them: [...] Dutch and Afrikaans." Yet this pair has now been included, properly sourced, for a long time. Maybe you could remove it from the page notice? --JorisvS (talk) 22:31, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Done. Let's see if anyone objects. — kwami (talk) 23:10, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Dravidian classification

Four subgroup classification is widely accepted by all Dravidianists, including Krishnamurti (2003), Southworth (2005). The only exception is PS Subrahmanyam, who repeats his arguments from 1970 in his latest book (2008). Why do you keep changing it to three subgroups? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Varttik (talk • contribs) 10:21, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Krishnamurti (2003) has three groups, not four. Though he does place Telugu in Southern rather than Central: I'll fix that. — kwami (talk) 10:28, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Updated all info boxes. — kwami (talk) 10:54, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Varttik (talk • contribs) 14:27, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Dompo unclassified?

Why have you added Dompo to List of language families#Unclassified languages? Dompo language indicates no controversy about the classification at all. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:38, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that. I fixed the article. — kwami (talk) 22:07, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Formalism/Functionalism

Please don't lecture me on this, this is something with which i am quite familiar and which is in fact central to some of my professional work, and in which I have received ample instruction throughout my education. I do know how the form/function debate relates to how one might choose to define case. I must say that it seems that you are not quite clear on the implications on this debate on questions of linguistic description though. A functionalist view of language naturally does not disregard morphology but is sceptical of definitions of concepts that are based on formal criteria - that is the reason why the formal <functional> paradigm prefers to define cases by their functions (i.e. the kinds of meanings they convey) rather than by the semblances of the morphological material that markes it. You are making a formalist argument when you insist that if the forms are identical they have to be the considered same case - Drew is arguing that the fact that there is a functional distinction between dative and accusative in English then it doesn't matter that they share the same morphology. This is exactly the same argument as Jespersen and McCallaway had 80 years ago. Also the UG question is only coincidentally related to the formal/functional question - there are formalists who are not Chomskyans, and formalist theories that are not generative. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:44, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Of course differences in function are considered, but "formal" doesn't mean surface form, it means underlying form. If anything, surface form may be disregarded, whereas a functionalist may place more weight on surface form as being cognitively salient: how surface form corresponds with function, rather than with underlying structure. A formalist might argue that ACC and DAT are different in English because linguistic theory requires it, a functionalist because there are differences in behaviour, but either way, the two camps are not separated by morphology vs. syntax or within syntax by word order vs. syntactic role. Disregarding the phoneme for surface form would be a functionalist approach to phonology. But now you're saying that the formalist prefers function over form, so I'm not quite sure what your argument is.

(edit conflict) As for you last comment (UG), that's something I need to look into. Functionalism vs. surface formalism while disregarding the other is not s.t. that a lot of people seem to do, but perhaps I'm being naive. When you speak of the great divide in linguistics, I think of the generativist approach. (edit conflict) Anyway, functionalist approaches I've seen have been careful to distinguish morphological case from syntactic roles, and there are generally a different set of terms for the two: dative vs. recipient, etc. — kwami (talk) 02:01, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

(If I said that formalists prefer function over form then I of course said the opposite of what I meant to say - I've corrected that now -sorry.) Formal means both surface and underlying form, depending which formal theory you use. Only the Chomskyan tradition talks of underlying form - the form/function debate is much older than that, going aall the way back to the Junggrammatiker and the Prague circle. Disregarding the phoneme is not a functionalist approach - the very definition of the phoneme is functional since it is the minimal unit that distinguishes meaning. That is a functional definition. The generativist approach is of course by far the most salient of the formalist approaches, but it is not synonymous with it and there were formalist approaches before generativism - in that sense it means any approach that prefers to define categories by formal rather than functional criteria. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:16, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

You're right, of course, there's long been that distinction in theoretical approach. I just hadn't thought of it as being what all the fuss is about.

I should be careful to say 'generativist' rather than 'formal'. So, what would be the antonym of "generativist"?

A phoneme is an underlying form, and deriving surface form from underlying form is the essence the generativist approach. (OT claims not to be generativist but does essentially the same thing.) A more functionalist approach would be to consider the phoneme a theoretical abstraction of the cognitive associations between pronunciations in associated words and utterances, without requiring that they have sharp boundaries between them. Bybee rejects discrete phonemes and is quite functionalist. — kwami (talk) 02:42, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

The concept of the phoneme long predates Chomskyan notions of underlying forms and was initially defined by Sapir following Saussure as a functional unit, the minimal unit that distinguishes lexical meaning - that is the definition of the phoneme used in most run of the mill funcitonal stheories (such as Basic Linguistic Theory) that I know of. You are right that some functionalist (sometimes called extreme functionalist) approaches reject the reality of the phoneme. It is only from a Formalist Generativist perspective that it is an underlying from. Generativist doesn't have an antonym, since it is in opposition both to other formal and functional approaches - non-generativist would probably be the best antonym.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 03:20, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I seem to remember that Sapir didn't reify the phoneme to the extent that's been done since. — kwami (talk) 03:24, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean define rather than reify? Sapir showed that the phoneme has psychological reality, but he was also the first to clearly define it as a bundle uniting different phonetic realizations as a single structural unit. Here he built on work done by Boas (in his article on Alternating sounds), and coupled with Saussures structuralism the idea of the phoneme as defined as the minimal unit of distinction for meaning was dominant untill the rise of Generativism). I am pretty sure for example that this is the definition used by the Bloomfieldians (I can Check Bloomfields "Language" to see tomorrow). The point is that just as with case it is possible to define the phoneme in either formal (an underlying form governing surface realizations) or functional terms (minimal unit of meaning). ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 03:34, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

It's been so long that I don't really remember, but I thought he didn't have as absolute a conception of phoneme as what came later. More shades of grey. — kwami (talk) 03:39, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Thats true, especially in his early work (in his 1921 "Language" it seems that he basically has the concept ready but just doesn't name it)- but as soon as Saussurean approaches became current it cemented into a fully fledged concept. (Benjamin Whorf defined the concept of Allophone!)·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 03:41, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Cappadocian

Hi, last year you changed the language family for Cappadocian from Hellenic to 'mixed'. While I agree that the Turkish influence is massive and profound enough to justify such a classification, the language is, as far as I know, usually referred to as a Greek dialect (perhaps mainly because of the speakers' self identification, but anyway). Can you refer to a paper in which Mark Janse or any other linguist calls it a mixed language? Steinbach (talk) 09:25, 23 March 2012 (UTC) BTW my English isn't perfect and the above question looks a little awkward to me, but I'm afraid it won't get any better than this.

Sure. Thomason & Kaufman, 1988, Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. They give it as their first case study.

BTW, I would have assumed you were a native speaker if you hadn't said anything. — kwami (talk) 17:57, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

But another example in that book if I remember correct is English which isn't a mixed language - being an example of diffusion or contact doesn't in itself make it a "mixed language". Do they actually refer to it as such?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:22, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes. They give examples of how many languages claimed to be mixed actually are not, but Cappadocian Greek they accept.

I'm having difficulty locating where they actually call it that. Mentions are scattered throughout the book, but their discussion assumes that it is, and it's given as the first example. English is given as a counter-example at the end, with the subtitle or why English is not a mixed language. — kwami (talk) 18:33, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation closed

An arbitration case regarding article titles and capitalisation has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

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2. Pmanderson is indefinitely prohibited from engaging in discussions and edits relating to the Manual of Style or policy about article titles.
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For the Arbitration Committee, Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 23:04, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Velar nasal and Egyptian Arabic

Hi Kwami, the velar nasal consonant doesn't exist in Egyptian Arabic as a phoneme nor as an allophone. Please, make sure that you don't use an automated editing which changes all the [n] before [k] to [ŋk], because many languages as Arabic dialects just don't have the velar nasal, not even as an allophone. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 16:33, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. Maybe drop a note on the IPA-for-Arabic page talk as well? — kwami (talk) 21:17, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Oblique case

User:Drew.ward is frustrated that you have implemented a blanket change inserting "oblique case" into articles about English grammar while the issue is still being discussed. I realize that he hasn't presented any sources in support of his viewpoint, but I agree with him on point of principle that it is not a good approach to implement a blanket change that is still under contention. Perhaps you will want to undo some of those changes as a gesture of good faith, and take up the discussion at Talk: oblique case again? I also think that it has not been conclusively shown that "oblique" case is to be preferred over other alternatives - and I tend towards thinking that more than one analysis (sourced of course) should be presented and neither given as definitive.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:44, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I made those changes early on, before there was much debate. I agree that we should not only present one side: in some cases I wrote 'oblique (objective)' or 'objective (oblique)', and I did use 'objective' rather than 'oblique' when NOM & GEN were called 'subjective' and 'possessive'. But I'm not going to bend over backwards for someone who can't be bothered to provide a single source for his opinion, when I have already searched through quite a few.

I don't particularly care to take up the discussion again unless he's going to participate in a meaningful way. Unless he presents some evidence, I don't see why I should bother. He's had days, and isn't making any effort. — kwami (talk) 01:52, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I also agree that he should make more efforts at arguing his case instead of arguing ad hominem, I'm just trying to mediate a little. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 03:00, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I see, he's on you talk page. If he spent half that time reviewing sources, we might have solved this. — kwami (talk) 03:47, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

March 2012

When moving pages, as you did to Siriano people, please remember to fix any double redirects. These can create slow, unpleasant experiences for the reader, waste server resources, and make the navigational structure of the site confusing. Thank you. -Uyvsdi (talk) 03:38, 27 March 2012 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Smallcaps all (continue)

The TfD is complete – discussion has resumed on the template talk page to implement fixes suggested by the TfD. Your assistance is requested. Thanks. —Telpardec  TALK  16:57, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Redirection of Fernando Poo Creole English to Pichinglis

Yes, the two dialects are now Pichinglis. But by redirecting the Fernandino Poo Creole English article to Pichinglis article you've totally rewritten history and removed the liguistic influence of the Efik people of Calabar State Nigeria on Bioko Island - unless someone is assuming that the Efik and Krio people are one in the same. That needs to be investigated because there is historical Krio group in Nigeria called the Saro. But I think if Pichinglis was brought to Bioko by the Saro, this would be noted historically. The original form of Pichinglis, before it was merged with Fernando Poo Creole, was brought to the island by Efik Nigerians involved in commercial trade. It was a dialect mainly used for conducting business and it arrived on the island before Fernando Poo Krio(Creole) English that the Krios of Afro-American descent, brought with them. Fernando Poo Creole English which was brought to Ferndando Poo Island, now Bioko, by the Krio people - the African-American repatriates. This detail isn't offered in the Pichinglis article. The Krio have the tendency of dominating the local history in their interpretation of it. They are able to do this because new the post-colonial regime, that took over post-independence, burned indigenous written historical records which provided an opportunity for anyone to come in and rewrite the local history. The Krio have the tendency of re-writing the local history in their favor, with a slight bias. So this minute fact must be noted. The Efik people of of former Calabar State, Nigeria originally brought Pichinglis to Bioko island.

The Efik people had their own cultural identity separate from the Sierra Leon Krios, despite also having also been colonized by the British. The Efik people are indigenous in bloodline, the Krios were not (less so at the time in question than they are now). Bab-a-lot (talk) 10:31, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I didn't rewrite anything: None of that was in the article. I merely merged two articles that claimed to be about the same thing. You might try adding this info to the FPC article, and clarifying it on the Pichi article, because currently they're a content fork that needs to be remerged. — kwami (talk) 10:36, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

My apologies, I corrected the information the entry. The Efik people brought Pichinglis to Bioko. Please, re-read it. I undid my unmerge edits. I will simply add and cite the information in the Pichinglis article. Bab-a-lot (talk) 10:49, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't mind having two separate articles, as long as it's clear they're about two separate things. Also, two histories would complicate the info box, which only allows for one ancestry, so maybe it's better they stay separate.

Didn't we have this discussion a long time ago? It seems familiar. — kwami (talk) 10:52, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure if we had this discussion a long time ago. Also, the ancestries in reference here are more than one. The ancestry of the Efik people who originally brought Pichinglis is ethnic Nigerian. The first adopters of this dialect were the indigenous (Bubi) Spaniard and Portuguese mulatto Fernandinos of Bioko. The ancestry of the Sierra Leone Creole(Krio) people, or Krio Fernandinos, who brought Fernando Poo Creole English to the island, were blacks of African-American lineage. Those are the ancestral origins of the two groups. Bab-a-lot (talk) 11:01, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I mean the ancestry of the language. Currently we show it as an English creole via Krio. If that's only true for FPC, and it's wrong to give it for Pichi, the my edits are inappropriate. If there are two separate creoles, they should have two info boxes to keep things straight, though that could be in either one article or two. — kwami (talk) 11:05, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Old Permic alphabet

Should the Old Permic alphabet be described as a descendant of Cyrillic? It seems to be a case like Coptic or Cyrillic itself, which are both essentially the contemporary Greek alphabet with a couple of additional signs of (partly) native (i. e., older than the introduction of Greek) extraction for special (i. e., foreign to Greek or hard to represent in Greek characters) native sounds – you've got that even in Old English or Gothic, with the addition of a few Runic letters, after all. But the intro and the infobox are written as if the script were completely original, which I suspect is a nationalistic POV. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:58, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Bernard Comrie writes, "A highly idiosyncratic adaptation of Cyrillic was introduced by Bishop Stephen of Perm for Old Permic, i.e. Old Komi, in the late fourteenth century; it fell into disuse in the seventeenth century". He refs Lytkin (1952), Drevnepermskij jazyk. — kwami (talk) 20:05, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

So my point was correct. Cool; thanks for making the change. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:50, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

It's clearly a separate script, from the looks of it. More distinct from Cyrillic than Latin is from Greek. I added it to the History of the Alphabet template: hopefully that will encourage s.o. to illustrate it better. — kwami (talk) 21:23, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Re: ref §

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AAH

Hello Kwami, Let's have some chat on the topic?

I know you're sympathetic to the AAH (not a proponent), and may be you're a bit irritated by the edit wars. Perhaps I've been gone too far by claiming that the AAH has gathered limited academic support, which I tried to confirm with RS. But the criticizers have gone much further... everything written about AAH must be negative, nothing positive is allowed.

Some common impression surrounding AAH (e.g. only a few "believers") is so powerful, that even proponents like me have seldom questioned them. I'm quite surprised, after a throughout literature search, that individual supports appear more than individual criticisms (hoping it's not some kind of confirmation bias). The thing is, haven't some people fallen into a confirmation bias that "AAH is a crackpot >> each piece of support is weak and should be omitted >> there's few support >> AAH is a crackpot" ? It sounds crazy that even the full literature list is presented, no one wants to believe it. I wonder how can we jump out from the negative feedback. (of course, even the academics is full of such negative or positive feedbacks -- when people believe in something, they will keep believing it). Yours, Chakazul (talk) (list of RS for/against AAH) 17:51, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm simply not familiar enough with the literature to make such a judgement, so I try to limit myself to egregious POV breaches, likes Moore's hack piece. Because so little has been written on the AAH in RS's that we're writing as much from our impressions as from the lit, so it's going to be difficult to come to a balanced account. I suspect this is something that will need to go to POV/RS/Fringe arbitration. — kwami (talk) 21:03, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think an appeal in POV/RS/Fringe noticeboards will change much, because most editor should believe that AAH is a crackpot (simply a social phenomenon). I think WP is very much reflecting what are believed in common sense, not the latest developments or hard-to-verify points, which is perhaps a good thing to its stability. Anyway I shouldn't take much more effort to defend something here, perhaps take a break like Dominus suggested. Thanks for your comments :) Chakazul (talk) (list of RS for/against AAH) 16:33, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I think most people are going to go by what they can find in the lit, which is pretty much the point of an encyclopedia. I've had my frustrations with such things too. — kwami (talk) 22:07, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Infobox language reference e16

At the moment, Template:Infobox language/ref doesn't seem to work well with ref=e16. That is, what I see in the template documentation. -DePiep (talk) 22:11, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

It seems to work fine in the articles. I added some capability, so that if there's more than one ISO code, it will link to them (or at least the first three), rather that just giving a generic Ethnologue ref. I don't know what the problem with the doc is. — kwami (talk) 22:30, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I think it's because there is no ISO3 or LC1 code on the page for it to link to, and I lost the default behaviour when I added the new stuff. It shouldn't affect any articles, because we shouldn't have a ref to E16 if there is no ISO code, so maybe we could generate an error template to clean any of these up? — kwami (talk) 22:36, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

We should also generate an error if we have ref=e16 and iso3=none. Currently this just generates a spurious ref link. — kwami (talk) 23:40, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:HighBeam

Wikipedia:HighBeam describes a limited opportunity for Wikipedia editors to have access to HighBeam Research.
—Wavelength (talk) 22:23, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for that!

I'm actually trying to wean myself off WP, though I keep saying that and never do. I hope to scale back once a few projects are done, and signing up for more would be going in the wrong direction. — kwami (talk) 22:27, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution survey

Dispute Resolution – Survey Invite Hello Kwamikagami. I am currently conducting a study on the dispute resolution processes on the English Wikipedia, in the hope that the results will help improve these processes in the future. Whether you have used dispute resolution a little or a lot, now we need to know about your experience. The survey takes around five minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released. Please click HERE to participate. Many thanks in advance for your comments and thoughts. You are receiving this invitation because you have had some activity in dispute resolution over the past year. For more information, please see the associated research page. Steven Zhang DR goes to Wikimania! 23:50, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Japonic languages

Thank you for your good job at Japanese dialect and making File:Japonic languages (schematic).png, but I have an advice about the file. All part of Niigata Prefecture is colored green, but I think it is better to color the northeastern part of the prefecture, the area which is usually considered the Southern Tohoku dialect, blue.--Kyoww (talk) 23:42, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to improve, if you like. Since I was only aiming for a quick impression (we already have a more detailed map), I mostly just followed provincial boundaries. But I'll take a look. — kwami (talk) 23:51, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

I've rechecked Shibatani, and I believe the map is correct. At least according to him. Northeastern Niigata is typically intermediate; if anything, the isoglosses suggest that southwestern Niigata should be blue and northeastern green. I colored green anything that changed from eastern to western depending on which of the six mapped isoglosses was chosen. — kwami (talk) 05:55, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

I understand. Thank you for your reply. By the way, I wrote "the northeastern part of ... the Southern Tohoku dialect", but it was a mistake of "the Northern Tohoku dialect", sorry.--Kyoww (talk) 08:01, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Reply to --> Disenfranchising Ghanaians?

For some reason I don't follow, you appear to be attempting to disenfranchise millions of Ghanaians, claiming that the Ewe in Ghana are really Togolese, when really the majority of Ewe have lived in Ghana since before there was a Ghana, that other peoples don't really live there, but in Burkina, etc., as well as an attempt to deny people their religion. I got tired of reviewing it all, since they all appeared to have the same aim, so I rolled back all your edits on people and languages today. Am I missing something?

• You've also falsified sources, such as using Brazilian census data to justify deleting the Ewe population from Ghana, or changing a direct quote to say something else. This looks like fraud. — kwami (talk) 04:51, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

• Kwami, I'm was not disenfranchise millions of Ghanaians, I'm sorry if that's what you thought I was doing. I was just putting the location of where a certain amount of people have a majority of their population based. Because, Kwami for instance, Frafra people are primarily located in Burkina Faso and are citizens of Burkina Faso, and mostly cross the Southern Burkina Faso-Northern Ghana border on regular and daily basis, in the same way Ewe's from Togo and even Ewe's in Ghana's Volta Region where the majority reside in Ghana and are Togolese citizens, and enter into Ghana through the southeastern Ghana-Togo boarder on a daily basis, for foodstuffs and shopping etc, due to having a ECOWAS passport.

Ghana was Gold Coast before it was named Ghana, and the Ewe population in Ghana today were based between Germany's Togoland and Britain's Togoland when Ghana was still named the Gold Coast. The Ewe were living between Germany's Togoland and British Togoland, before Gold Coast's name was changed to Ghana, and then the British Togoland was joined to the Gold Coast, so when the name of the country was changed to Ghana the British Togoland, where Ghana's Ewe population derive from was renamed as the Volta Region of today's Ghana. Because in certain articles the information written are as if a certain group of people in Ghana are a majority from a region of Ghana such as various groups of Burkina Faso citizens and non-Ghana citizens, and people native to the southern Regions of Burkina Faso and other West African nationals, due to having a ECOWAS passport.

Kwami, the groups of peoples you think may be Ghanaian citizens (A Ghanaian passport holders) are not Ghanaian passport holders or citizens, but rather from citizens of Burkina Faso with Burkina Faso passports, and Togolese citizens with Togolese passports and not Ghanaian citizens with Ghanaian passports, Kwami. What I was doing Kwami, was putting information straight and correct, as many of the articles information that was written really were lacking sources. Kwami, the current population for the Ewe group of people in Ghana is approximately 2,197,889 Ewe peoples in Ghana today (source from --> WorldMap.org) from which about 500,000 – 700,000 are likely Ghanaian citizens (Have Ghanaian passports) and the rest of the Ewe population would be Togolese citizens (Have Togolese passports), you may like to do research on how many groups of people in Ghana from other neighboring and non-neighboring West Afrcan countries are actually Ghanaian citizens (Have Ghanaian passports), remember a person from any West African country would not need a Visa (document) to be in Ghana, due to having a ECOWAS passport. Regards — MarkMysoe (talk) 06:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

• You're saying that the majority of the total Ewe population are Togolese who just happen to be "shopping" in Ghana when the enumeration takes place, and both (a) trick the surveyors into thinking they're Ghanaian citizens, and then (b), when they get back to Togo, trick the govt. there into also thinking that they're Ghanaians? I think we'd need a rather good ref to support that. As far as I can tell, 95% of Frafra and 65% of Ewe are Ghanaians, and they aren't all "shopping". The Ewe are 13% of Ghana, as opposed to 20% of Togo, but Ghana also has five times the population of Togo.

Then there's the problem of redirecting readers looking for traditional religion to the Christianity article, creating a crime section that basically blames Ghana's problems on Nigerians (I live in a country where many people similarly blame crime on illegal immigrants; you've got to be very careful about ethnic/national scapegoating), and then the apparent falsification of your references: how are the Brazilian census or a book which never even mentions "Ghana" sources for a demographic table in the Ghana article? At first I thought maybe there were just a few problems I needed to clean up, but the more I looked, they more it seemed that every substantial edit was problematic. — kwami (talk) 06:42, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

• I'm really sorry for the misunderstanding Kwami, I redirected traditional African religion because the largest group of people in the country Ghana, were the Akan people, and they are mostly Christians (Historically), with the Islam population in Ghana coming from the Dagomba people who comprimise 7 to 8% of Ghana's population, with the other groups of people such as the Frafra and others from being Burkina Faso nationals in Northern Ghana having Islam as their religion and Islamic population of Ghana at approximately 3 million in the year 2009, 16 percent of the population. The Traditional African religion article did not cite any references at all for confirmation of information wrote in it, and I could not also find the correct sources for the information wrote in the Traditional African Religion article, so I decided that if the article could not be verified with sources, instead of the article being deleted, it would be best to redirect it to the clear dominant religion in Ghana in-contrast with the clear largest group of people the Akan, and also looking at the Traditional African religion population of Ghana, and the Christianity population of Ghana in accordance with the groups of people, it came to my logic that Christianity will be the dominant religion of Akan people and the Traditional African religion as a Akan historical religion. The Traditional religion article was tagged to be merged into the the Akan people article before I decided it would be best to redirect the article to Christianity in Ghana. Note that Ghana is the only country in West Africa having a Christian population of over 50% making the country a Christian country, with almost 70% of Ghana's population being a Christian in contrast with the Akan population at almost 50%.

As far as 13 percent Ewe population in Ghana in 2012, sources varies, taking in contrast that this percentage was given in the 2000 census of 18 million people in Ghana in 2000, 12 years ago, over a decade ago and the current Ewe population in Ghana of 2,197,889 out of 2009's Ghana census of 24 million people in Ghana. How Ewe make up 13% out of Ghana's 2009, 24 million people is a mystery, with various sources suggesting Ewe population of Ghana at 11.7% in the year 2000 Ghana population census. I'm not saying that all Ewe's are Togolese but you cannot be sure to yourself Kwami, that all the 11.7% or 13% of the Ewe's in Ghana were Ghanaian citizens when the the 2000 census was taking. For instance about ease of which Togolese citizens can (and do) cross into Ghana from Togo on a daily basis for foodstuffs and shopping etc, via the Ghana-Togo boarder --> Pedestrian border opens at Ghana-Togo border. The next population census for Ghana is due in December 2012. I have been working on the Ghana article along with Crosstemplejay and Materialscientist for a while now to get it from where it was. Reverting the article as how it was in November 2011, showing the country as a poor country, when in fact the country is one of the richest and has one of the best economy and education sector in sub-Saharan Africa, so you reverting it back to how the article was in November 2011, because of a misunderstanding which I' have been trying to explain, would not be of any help to the country Ghana, with a article lacking the hardwork and updated information, information material in-contrast with the country having one of fastes growing economy's in the world, and as being the third best and largest economy in Africa being showing in the article, and actually reflecting a country with a advance economy, which will all be removed as when you reverted the article to how the article was in November 2011, which rather shows the country of Ghana as a really poor country when in-fact it is a Middle-Income countery. MarkMysoe (talk) 08:31, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

• There did seem to be a consistent attempt at expunging the second-largest ethnicity from Ghana. You're now saying they're 12% instead of 13% – fine, that's still more than the Ga-Adangbe, who you list as 2nd, and yet you continue to revert to a version of the article which does its best to deny that they even exist. You move them to last among the govt.-sponsored languages (I suppose you couldn't just delete them there, where they have legal standing?), and delete them entirely from the graph of comparative populations, delete mention of them in other areas where the citation specifies them, and where you do list them, you combine them (and other groups) as foreigners. Your "references" include apparently racist rants and even then do not support your edits. It really does suggest you have something against the Ewe and numerous other peoples. As you noted, Ghana includes what had been German Togoland, which in the south was Ewe. Unless Ghana is planning on ceding that territory to Togo, and the north to Burkina, reducing itself to the old Ashanti kingdom, then they are just as much Ghanaians as the Akan are. And when people look up traditional religion, they aren't looking for Christianity! How could you possibly think that? Even if Ghana were 100% Christian, it would still have a history of traditional religion. — kwami (talk) 16:29, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

• Ok Kwami, I was just not happy with the way you reverted my edits like they mean nothing. If you are going to keep on reverting my Wikipedia contributions, leading to a edit war which I am absolutely not a fan, tell me now please, so I could professionally leave Wikipedia immediately because honestly I'm just volunteering to Wikipedia. But if that does not mean anything, then tell me so I could leave Wikipedia immediately please. MarkMysoe (talk) 00:32, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I reverted your edits because the ones I looked through were often about virtual ethnic cleansing rather than honest edits. I got tired of looking through them all, and at that point anything by you was suspect. I have a bit more time today (though I really should be doing other things), so am looking through some of the ones you reverted. Many of them are fine. However, saying that people you don't like are foreigners or criminals is not acceptable behaviour. Perhaps I'm wrong about this, but the solution is to get some other opinions (I've asked for input with one editor you've worked with), and not just edit war.

If you're going to claim that the people in the east, west, and north of Ghana aren't Ghanaians, please substitute the map of Ghana with a map of Ashantiland. Either that or get elected president, and you can be the next Yugoslavia. — kwami (talk) 00:39, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Pre-occlusion

You have now completely buggered up the links, and you have moved the article to a title where there was not consensus for the move. I object to your unilateral action here. It is wrong, and abusive of good will. -- Evertype·✆ 09:54, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. -- Evertype·✆ 10:00, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Reduced English Vowels

I think it would be useful if you could spare the time to look at the re-working of this topic that I have been drafting. It's in my sandbox. Definitely not finished yet.

I'm going to be away for a few days, so will have to leave the topic until I get back.

Thanks, Peter Roach RoachPeter (talk) 10:43, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Good deal. I'll take a look tomorrow. (I need to get to bed!) — kwami (talk) 11:06, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Reverting My Edits

When you remove a 'citation needed' tag, you need to provide a citation. Also, the citation you provide needs to support the point being questioned. Falsifying references is a form of fraud. Do you even bother to read the references you're edit warring over? You need references on the nine languages taught in schools, as well as the number of Hindus in Ghana, before you delete those tags. — kwami (talk) 09:56, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Look, you claim that there are 2,000 Hindus in Ghana, I provided two sources, 1 from Tehelka a major India national newspaper (India the home of Hinduism and a Country with the largest Hindu population in the World and Hinduism associations) clearly saying that there are 10,000 African Hindus in Ghana in 2009, and not 2,000 African Hindus as you have defrauded and falsified yourself --> Culture & Society - The Swami Of Accra, the 2nd source I provided was from Hinduism Today Magazine (a major Worldwide Hinduism magazine) also saying that there are 10,000 African Hindus in Ghana, and not 2,000 African Hindus as you have once again defrauded and falsified yourself --> African Council Mobilizes.

I added two sources for Buddhism in Ghana, 1 from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) showing that Shintoism and Ninchiren Shoshu Sōka Gakkai are practiced in Ghana --> 2009 Report on International Religious Freedom - Ghana from 2009 and not 2000 or 2007, showing that Traditional African religion in Ghana may actually be 8.5% like most sources you will find on the Internet and not 15% as you once again defrauded and falsified, with a source from a "America religious freedom" website saying (15 percent adheres to traditional indigenous religious beliefs "or" other religious groups). The second source I provided for Buddhism, shows that Ninchiren Shoshu Sōka Gakkai is not only a practiced religion in Ghana, but a religion with its own Ghana Soka Gakkai International (SGI) - Ghana association --> SGI-Ghana - Who We Are.

For the source supporting that there are 9 languages (that have the status of government-sponsored) from the Embassy of Ghana in Washington, D.C. stating that the country has 9 languages as government-sponsored. Would a country's embassy to the most powerful country in the World have the number of it's government-sponsored languages incorrect?, I think not --> Ghana -Language and Religion, and for the specific 9 languages that have the status of government-sponsored, I provided a source from "Ghana Web" (a major national news website of Ghana) clearly showing the specific 9 languages with additional information of the 9 languages --> Ghanaian Languages. Your then rebuke with "bigotry" that this citation from Ghana Web (a major national news website of Ghana) is a unreliable source, without you not finding your "so called more reliable source" with as much information that Ghana Web has provided.

The percentages for the ethnic groups in Ghana do not match the population figures of the each ethnic groups, such as Mole-Dagbon with a Mossi population of (341,000) and a Dagomba population of (657,973), and a Ewe percentage given as 11.7% and 13% of Ghana's population yet their population in Ghana is (2,200,000), how these population figures add up to 15% for Mole-Dagbon and 11.7% & 13% for Ewe, out of a Ghana population of 25 million people in 2012 is absolutely bogus and inaccurate (see comment on the questioning of the verifiable accuracy at those percentage figures on Ghana's talk page from User:Tired time --> Talk:Ghana#Mole-Dagbon people), and mind you that these percentage figures were give given in the year 2000 Ghana census, with Ghana then having a population of 19 million people, just 6 million shy of Ghana's 2012, 25 million people population, which means that even in the year 2000, I really don't how many of the people belonging to the ethnic groups were in Ghana at the time the 2000 census was taking, or the source of who published those percentage figures in the first place, but these percentage figures would have still been bogus and inaccurate even in the year 2000. I really don't know how CIA World Factbook got their percentage publication, but it could be likely that they got it in the same way you have gotten them, from a bogus and inaccurate ethnic group publication that was spread along the internet and many websites and publications, and most likely not from any of Ghana's government agencies, most especially not from the Ghana Immigration Service, but rather from a dubious, amateur, lazy and inaccurate website. The are numerous reliable and accurate websites devoted to population count of the ethnic groups in Ghana and the ethnic groups around the World, such as --> www.joshuaproject.net and worldmap.org.

I have worked so hard on the Ghana article to get it to as informative as it is today, only for you to be publishing inaccurate ethnic group figures. And accusing me of Bigotry when you are clearly abusing your Wikipedia administer privileges. You now then revert every single contribution that I am making. I have been a contributor to Wikipedia for 1 year now with 6,298 useful edit contributions to numerous Wikipedia articles and topics --> MarkMysoe - Edit Count, only for you to now take me as a questionable editor because of a misunderstanding of me cleaning up articles with unsourced contents, as people would rather be reading a article thats verifiable or at least has some sought of sources added to it even if the sources are not reliable, which most of the ethnic groups in Ghana, Wikipedia articles lack any sources whatsoever.

I have now decided that it would be in my interest to leave Wikipedia and stop wasting my time on a inaccurate internet Encyclopedia, which really not many people trust and hardly view for their information because of editors such as you who delete correct published information then publish false information without trying to do some research yourself (see Wikipedia Article Traffic Statistics to see how overall un-popular Wikipedia and Wikipedia articles, and how many times a specific Wikipedia article has been viewed in a Day, Month and Year). As you seem, and I have identified you as a un-humble administrator, and a administrator who abuses his administrator privileges, which totally breaks any Wikipedia law on fair treatment to a fellow contributor, especially when it is a administrator. So, I now depart with Wikipedia losing yet another willing and useful contributor and editor, due to Wikipedia's one of many corrupted administrators. I wish you all the best — MarkMysoe (talk) 19:36, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

If your sources support your edits, it would be helpful if your indicated where, so I could verify. Time and time again, I check your references and find no support. The 2,000-Hindu figure comes from the source *you* provided; if it's a falsification, you have only yourself to blame. I have no confidence in either your credibility or your motives, when, for example, you use the *Brazilian* census rather than the Ghanaian census to argue that the Ewe are not Ghanaians! The figures I used are those of the Ghanaian census, as reported in 2ary sources. (I could not find the census itself.) If you have better sources, I suggest you bring them up on the talk page, something you have so-far failed to use.

If your source claims that Shintoism is a form of Buddhism, you need to find a better source. As for the nine languages, you never listed nine languages, and kept deleting the tag I added for citation. The nine I listed are ones I found in a 3ary source. Not a reliable one, though, which is why it is still tagged for citation.

As for the ethnic figures, you're engaging in OR, adding up numbers of your own choosing from an unrelated website that may or may not be reliable. But even if the figures are reliable, combining them yourself may not be. The figures I provided are from the Ghanaian govt. Again, if you have better, please explain that on the talk page. You also might want to explain to the Ghanaian govt that they screwed up the 2000 census, so they don't do the same thing to the 2010 census, but here on WP we cannot use your opinion as a valid source.

Reverting edits you make, when you falsify sources and try to deny the people and religions you don't like, has nothing to do with me being an admin. Anyone could do it. — kwami (talk) 20:01, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Mixe languages

I see you've moved the article I created as Mixe languages to Oaxacan Mixean languages, and made Mixe languages redirect to Mixean languages. That is a very odd move since all sources call these languages simply "Mixe" and because "Mixean" is formed by adding the "an" suffix to the name of the Mixe languages. Also it breaks a whole bnch of links that should redirect to Mixe/Auuk but now lead to Mixean - a larger group including languages that are not usually called Mixe and which are never called ayuuk. By this move wikipedia has no article with the title of the original language group "mixe" but only of the derivateive "Mixean". The Mixean languages outside of oaxaca are never called "Mixe" but only Olutec, Sayultec etc. so there is no risk of confusion. Please move the article back - I can't do it myself since it requires me to delete the redirect. And perhaps start considering move suggestions on the talkpage before being bold. I tend to think about titles before creating articles so I generally have a rationale for why I create them where I do which i will be happy to share with you if you ask on the talkpage.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:46, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Done.

I probably moved it either because of the links to 'Mixe' that intended all of the Mixean languages, or because 'Mixe' is used by Ethnologue, or both. — kwami (talk) 02:58, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. :)·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:59, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm going through the info boxes of all the Mixean languages to fix the links, and I'm corrected some of the obvious Mixe-for-Mixean links in text. However, there are probably other cases where the two clades are mixed up. — kwami (talk) 03:04, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

• Hmm I undid an edit of yours at Mixe-Zoquean, but now I realize its the Sil classification and its very odd since it groups the Highland Mixe languages separately as "Western Mixe". In classifications based on shared innovations these are just part of the Mixe group, and equidistant to the Olutec, Sayultec cluster with the rest of the Mixe languages called eastern Mixe by the ethnologue. This is another instance where SILs use of mutual intelligibility confuses the picture of historical internal relations. Its also the one used in the phylogenetic tree. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 03:04, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

if you can, please clean it up if we follow that on WP. Intelligibility tests aren't generally very reliable even for intelligibility, certainly not if the SIL questionnaires I've seen are typical. We sometimes do use such results, but hopefully only because there's nothing better to go on.

The terminology might come from Wichmann (1995). — kwami (talk) 03:08, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Wichmann's classification of the Mixe languages is given in the article, at Mixe_languages#Classification.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 03:13, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Appalling Corrections

Kwami, if you could just stop correcting the pronunciations you know nothing about. Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil is [haːˈlit ziˈjaː uˌʃaklɯˈɡil], not [ˈhalit ˈzija uˈʃaklɯɡil]. Check Turkish dictionaries before you correct anything. If not, you will be reported and banned.

Also don't add stress marks to Serbo-Croatian words. The tone mark is sufficient indication of where the stress falls and what tone the vowel has. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.161.124.138 (talk) 13:37, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

First of all, you're being a WP:DICK. Report me if you like.

Second, if you know of a Turkish dictionary that includes the pronunciation of personal names, please tell the rest of us. I will tag that name as citation needed, since you say it's irregular, almost ungrammatical, without evidence.

Last, could you show me where I added redundant tone stress marking in SC? If I did, it was an oversight, easy enough to fix. — kwami (talk) 18:31, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Hm, since I don't know if you'll see your talk page, since you're not signed in, I notice that you mistranscribe basic English vowels, easy things like sierra that could be checked in a dictionary; use Chinese punctuation in Latin text; use non-IPA characters in IPA transcriptions, and mis-ascribe the language of transcriptions — does that mean you should be banned for "appalling corrections" too? — kwami (talk) 20:19, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Kwam, Kwam. No, darl, I didn't use a wrong vowel in Sierra Nevada. Learn what i means, then speak. i is an abbreviatory convention, not a vowel. Also learn that IPA for Malay stands also as an IPA for Indonesian. Mkay? I'll keep policing your wretched edits and ultimately you will be deleted. i is also not a vowel in English, but again - an abbreviatory convention. What Chinese symbol did I use? Your browser might have an encoding issue, and I can prove it with a screenshot? What non-IPA signs did I use exactly, I would like to know? Intrigued. Not a reduntat tone marking, but you've added a stress mark, which IPA for Serbian doesn't use since the tone mark itself is enough.

Note also that Acehnese language, since you use the IPA for it, doesn't have the consonants you used in the transcription. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.161.124.138 (talk) 06:54, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

You might want to read the IPA for English key, since you appear to be unfamiliar with it. That's not the /iː/ vowel, nor is the other a schwa. You were using Chinese punctuation in the Serbo-Croatian article. They mess up the spacing. I just reverted you again. (If you go to "symbols" under your edit window, you'll get the correct symbols.) Yes, I understand the SC stress issue, I was asking you where I had done that. You were using a non-IPA "g". Also, you might want to check the Italian IPA key as well: Italian does not have a tap, it's not Spanish. And we double the consonant letter, because often the stress comes between. As for Acehnese, I don't know: "/c/" could stand for just about anything. But if it's wrong, fix it—don't substitute something else you know to be an error. — kwami (talk) 07:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Kwamikagami. You have new messages at MikeLynch's talk page.
Message added 12:45, 12 April 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Lynch7 20:32, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Things sure were a lot better in the WT:IN discussion when you were commenting there! Lynch7 17:09, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I've put in my 1½¢ again. — kwami (talk) 19:23, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

File:80px-Simbolo di Juno.jpg listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:80px-Simbolo di Juno.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Cloudbound (talk) 12:28, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

File:70px-Simbolo di Ceres.jpg listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:70px-Simbolo di Ceres.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Cloudbound (talk) 18:10, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Please explain that action

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Esperanto_orthography&diff=487153603&oldid=487148169 --Kc kennylau (talk) 03:28, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

It's a WP:content fork. We already have that info in the main article, as well as in the phonology article. There's no need for it a 3rd time. — kwami (talk) 06:07, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Israel in the Arab World

What were you trying to say when you said that Israel was 'arguably' part of the Arab World? Some of us here would like to know the arguments for that. Sonarclawz (talk) 10:28, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Large Arab population. 20% Israel proper, 45% total. Depending on your definitions, the latter is more than some Arab countries. (And actually the map shows part of Israel as being in the Arab world anyway.) — kwami (talk) 18:51, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Secular Islam Summit

It's very frustrating that you're repeatedly reverting productive edits without explaining what was wrong with them. Can you please elaborate on why you feel that "The summit was criticised by the Muslim group Council on American-Islamic Relations for being organized and attended by non-Muslims instead of by secular Muslims. CAIR also pointed out that the speakers were far-right neoconservatives, who were hostile to Islam and claimed that there was no such thing as moderate Islam rather than proposing reform" is an inaccurate summary of "the executive director of the Tampa chapter of CAIR...dismissed the St. Petersburg crowd as a bunch of 'atheists and non-Muslims' with no standing in the Muslim community....the frequent intemperance of the secularists' remarks, including the claim by the Syrian-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan that there is no difference between 'radical Islam and regular Islam,' played almost perfectly into the hands of CAIR. As its board chairman, Parvez Ahmed, noted, 'The [Secular Islam Summit] drew an amalgam of extreme right-wing and neocon voices who touted as role models of 'reform' those who are deep in their hostility to Islam.'", why you believe that a conference organized and attended by non-Muslims should be considered a liberal movement in Islam, and why you believe that an 1868 treaty about munitions is relevant to the article? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:05, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I did explain what was wrong with them. You did not reflect the POV of the source you were using. Especially when you are using inflammatory wording, such as accusing Muslims of not being Muslim, it's important to have balance and to reflect what 2ary sources actually say. Or perhaps I misread the source you provided: maybe on the talk page you could clip & paste the wording (w/ page #) that justifies your edit? I don't mean the sniping between primary sources you quote here, but what the 2ary source concludes about them? — kwami (talk) 22:16, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not accusing Muslims of not being Muslim (and neither are CAIR). The prominent participants in the summit don't identify as Muslim (the article gives people who identify as Muslim a passing mention, but doesn't name, quote, or discuss any) - are you just assuming that people with Arab names are Muslim? Is there something you feel is unclear about the wording I copy-pasted onto your talkpage a few hours ago? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:46, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

The article you cited says that the speakers varied from angry ex-Muslims to devout reformists. They then quote CAIR as saying that they are non-Muslims and far-right neoconservatives. You take sides with CAIR, rather than representing the 2ary source you're supposed to be using, by saying that CAIR "pointed out" this, which means that it's true. I don't think a devout reformist Muslim would count as a Neo-Con, and that's not what your source is saying either. — kwami (talk) 00:54, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you're objecting to. Why didn't you just say it was a problem with the wording (we even have a shortcut - WP:SAY) rather than blind-reverting with claims that the source was being misrepresented?

Part of the problem comes from the fact that the article has a criticism ghetto. If I were doing bigger work on the article, I'd have used the US News article more fundamentally and integrated the criticism into the general text, but I just came in to unlink a wikilink that went to the wrong place and replace a dead link. Of course the only thing the section contains from the source is criticism - it's a criticism section. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:06, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, but even in a criticism section we need some RS balance. If a 2ary source were to support the criticism, then it would be fair. Without that, however, we just have two rival organizations sniping at each other, and in such situations all sorts of nonsense gets said, things which are not worth mentioning in an article. I mean, for the US senators in the Progressive Caucus, should we say they have been criticized for being "card-carrying Communists", just because of the demonstrable nonsense their rivals are blowing?

If CAIR is correct in these allegations, if we can support them with RS's, then they certainly belong, and should be in the lead as well. Otherwise it's just mudslinging. — kwami (talk) 02:16, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Can you clarify what you mean about a secondary source supporting the criticism? We've already surpassed the SPS-criticism problem, and the US News article does substantiate the fact that it was organized and attended by non-Muslims and that speakers made comments denying the existence of moderate Islam. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:55, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I only see half of one of those points in the US News article. They do mention "the frequent intemperance of the secularists' remarks, including the claim by the Syrian-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan that there is no difference between "radical Islam and regular Islam," played almost perfectly into the hands of CAIR", which means that one point was exaggerated, and the rest they refer to as "mudslinging". So no, your source does not seem to support your edits. It does not substantiate the fact (?) that it was organized and attended by non-Muslims and that speakers made comments denying the existence of moderate Islam. — kwami (talk) 05:19, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean by "one point was exaggerated"? The article is clear about the fact that many such remarks were made. I'm also unclear as to what you mean with your citation of the "mudslinging" comment (ie. is it how you believe we should characterize the attendees' remarks, or a way of discrediting CAIR's criticism? - because it's used in reference to both parties). Likewise, the article is perfectly clear about the conference's being organized by the Center for Inquiry, a nonbeliever (atheist/agnostic/humanist/freethinker/skeptic) organization, and led by people like Wafa Sultan. Do you think that "no such thing as moderate Islam" is an inadequate paraphrase of "no difference between radical Islam and regular Islam," and if so, what paraphrase would you suggest? (And would you please do us the favor of fixing the incorrect wikilink you restored, restoring the reference you removed, etc.?) –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:32, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

One person isn't a conference. That's the exaggeration.

"Many such remarks"? You're reading that in yourself. The article only says many remarks were intemperate. It doesn't describe what they concerned, except to give that one example.

Yes, USNews characterizes it as a humanist organization, and it's fine to note criticisms of that. But your wording suggests that it's a faux-Muslim organization that may be being run by Christian evangelicals with an anti-Muslim agenda, which AFAICT it is not. Also, according to USNews, speakers include devout Muslims, so it does not support the claim that the speakers are non-believers. The criticisms by CAIR are not supported by the USNews reporting, and are characterized by them as mudslinging rather than as substantial criticisms. Therefore, if we repeat them as fact, we're engaged in mudslinging too.

I don't have any problem with you fixing links, etc. Go ahead. I'm only objecting to the substantial changes that do not appear to be supported by your refs.

Also, shouldn't we be having this conversation on the article talk page, so others can join in? — kwami (talk) 03:08, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

We could move there. I thought I'd address your talk page to make sure you saw it, since you were the only person that appeared to have a problem with the material.

I think you're reading into the sentence more than is actually there. Nowhere does my text say anything about Christian evangelism. The Center for Inquiry are non-Muslims. I'm sorry if you see some shadowy implications in that phrase, but that really is the simplest way of saying that they are not Muslim. Likewise, Wafa Sultan is not a Muslim (nor are Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Walid Phares, or most of the other prominent speakers), so how can you possibly argue that the claim that speakers were non-Muslim is false? You keep using the word "mudslinging," but you seem to deliberately be ignoring the fact that the US News article characterizes the speakers at the summit as mudslinging. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:52, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

"Ex-Muslims and devout reformers" does not mean "non-Muslims".

Yes, the two organizations were mudslinging. If we repeat their accusations as factual, then we're mudslinging too—unless we have RS's that they actually are factual. — kwami (talk) 22:54, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Er...an ex-Muslim is not a Muslim. That's what "ex-" means. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:02, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but a devout Muslim is a Muslim. That's what "devout" means. — kwami (talk) 23:12, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

That's not why you've been reverting me, though, at least not according to your comments above. You seem to believe that saying CAIR criticized the conference for being organized and attended by non-Muslims is a misrepresentation of the source, when it was in fact organized and attended by non-Muslims and when that's what CAIR said about it. I'm getting a little sick of trying to divine what you want, so why don't you insert the wording that you feel reflects the source? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:22, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

It's rather odd to criticize a secular summit for being secular, if that's your point.

I don't know what would be better. CAIR engaged in criticisms the USNews article did not substantiate and called "mudslinging". Is that notable? Maybe. How should we characterize it? Should we call it "mudslinging"? That would make it appear that there was no valid criticism. Should we have a criticism section and then imply that there is no valid criticism? That would seem to have the opposite POV problem. Maybe we could say that CAIR has criticized the summit for including ex-Muslims among its organizers and speakers. But is that what CAIR's criticism actually was? It doesn't seem so, from what I can see, which would mean that we'd be engaging in SYNTH. — kwami (talk) 23:30, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I tried to include their POV's while clarifying these are the opinions of individuals and not factual statements. — kwami (talk) 23:51, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Except that what you wrote is in no way an accurate representation of the criticism. Where does "criticized...for representing only a small minority of Muslims, not the majority who want to implement sharia law" even come from? If you think the previous content was wrong, the appropriate response is not to just make stuff up. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:57, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Because that's what they said, as opposed to the stuff you invented? Tell you what: since we don't seem to be able to agree what the words in the source are, let's just delete the section altogether. I don't see how two rival organizations sniping at each other is notable for an encyclopedia anyway. Find a RS that presents some factual criticism, and we can work from that. — kwami (talk) 02:19, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

US News and World Report is a reliable source and it supports the criticism that the conference was organized and attended by non-Muslims who made anti-Muslim comments such as Wafa Sultan's claim that all Islam was radical Islam. Please act like a mature person and discuss the content in order to achieve text that we both agree accurately represents the source, rather than removing reliably sourced content because you're sulky about not being able to write a little fictional story about what CAIR said. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:12, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

We are discussing the content. I just don't see where it says those things. Could you quote them, so I can read them too? Because as I read it, CAIR is calling devout Muslims a bunch of atheists, our source calls it mudslinging, and we should not repeat it. — kwami (talk) 06:22, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Are you having trouble finding the places in this thread where I already pointed out that the source said it was organized by the (atheist) Center for Inquiry, that (atheist) Wafa Sultan was a speaker and said that there was no difference between radical Islam and regular Islam, and where you yourself pointed out that it was attended by ex-Muslims? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:40, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm having trouble finding the places where the USNews article supports the things that you're adding to the article. You don't seem to recognize the difference between some and all, between atheist and devout, or between reporting and mudslinging. But perhaps I'm misjudging you. So, could you cite the places in the article where it supports the things you've written? — kwami (talk) 06:43, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

If I may interrupt: I edited the article and included the names of the participants. Now everybody can check for themselves if the participants are muslem or not. Moreover I edited the criticism-section to something that could be found in the source. It is also a bit shortened to prevent WP:UNDUE. I hope it will make you both happy. Regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 10:36, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. That's helpful. My concern though is that according to the US News article, CAIR's criticisms are factually incorrect. I worry about presenting them without a counterbalance. Bit of a BLP issue, even if not a bio. "Right wing", for example, couldn't mean right wing within the Islamic community, so who were those right-wing speakers? US News doesn't report anything of the kind, and they have not confirmed the complaint. But to make the criticism fit their coverage would be to distort it. I'll try, though. Rather as you did: they didn't word it as being organized and attended by s.o. other than secular Muslims, so that part is SYNTH. — kwami (talk) 19:27, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

All right, thanks for editing. Moreover, I corrected it once more; I gave the right source and attribution to the right persons, and I gave Susan Jacoby's opinion a place. See what you can do with it.~Regards, Jeff5102 (talk) 21:34, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

The IPA correction for Tamil Nadu

Hi,
I recently saw your addition of IPA to the article and I wanted you to reconsider the the last syllable, where you have mentioned 'du' in Tamil Nadu is pronounced like 'doo'. But I believe when pronouncing Tamil Nadu, it sounds with smaller 'oo' sound, somewhat like 'uh'. Please let me know your views and comments.
With Appreciation,
tausif 05:38, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

So it's pronounced "Tamil Nada"? You may be right, but I've never heard it, and I wrote what I was able to substantiate in dictionaries. Do you have any refs? — kwami (talk) 05:45, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

No, not 'Tamil nada', when pronounced, the 'du' is not stressed deeply like 'doo' or like 'teleGU'. There is no stress in the 'oo'. I was wondering if there's a better way of illustrating in the IPA.

tausif 06:16, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

But it isn't stressed the way it is. I don't understand what you're asking. — kwami (talk) 07:03, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

The German article has IPA and a recording [10] according to which it's [ˈt̪amɨɻˌnaːɖɯ]. Akerbeltz (talk) 17:25, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

But that's in Tamil. We can add that too. — kwami (talk) 17:33, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Jassic/Yassic

Hello, Kwamikagami. You have new messages at Taivo's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Map

Proposed colour scheme is really awful, current map is much better. Distinguish is completely unnecessary. We don't need million positions in the legend. Besides, where is the exact line beetwen 'most' and 'some' rights? It's a subjective matter. Ron 1987 (talk) 23:15, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Not subjective as far as we are concerned if it reflects the classification of our sources. The color scheme takes into account that some people are color blind. — kwami (talk) 03:58, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Note on Language articles and References

I noticed that the language articles are still popping up in the Pages with missing references list category, and I have continued adding {{Reflist}} templates to the articles as usual. I became curious, so I reviewed your bot request and saw that the request still hasn't went through. I just wanted to say that I agree with you 100% that something should be done about this, considering it's such a minor task to fix the errors, and that the errors are so visually impairing to the article when they are present, i.e. Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{Reflist}} template or a <references /> tag; see the help page. It has to be worth it to fix this. With much support, JJJ (talk) 03:54, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Maybe if you chimed in again someone would actually move on this? Though we do have one editor who thinks that red error messages are preferable to adding ref sections. Anyway, if you do not fix them, there are bots that will come around and do so. I was assuming you were operating a bot, but if you're not, you don't need to do it manually. — kwami (talk) 03:57, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't operate any bots. Most of the articles that are just missing a {{Reflist}} are fixed by bots rather quickly. The rest of the articles that appear in that category are articles that some editor has forgotten to add a </ref> tag to a reference he/she has added or references are cited using <ref></ref> tags below the {{Reflist}}, which also results in an error. So as I go through the list, I sometimes (or rather, I don't know how many they fix because once they are fixed they are removed from the category so I don't see them) beat the bots to the language articles, so I just go ahead and fix them. -- JJJ (talk) 15:24, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciation of plant family names

In the US, plant family names end in /-ˈeɪ.si/, not /-ˈeɪ.ʃi/, at least at all the institutions and meetings I've been involved with, including Duke and UC Berkeley. Are you using a British pronunciation? --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:35, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Your version is probably better, if it's that dominant. RP would be less likely to have /ʃ/. I've also heard /-ˈeɪ.si.iː/ and /-ˈeɪ.ʃi.iː/, either of which would be more formal, and derivatives always AFAIK have /ʃ/. If we convert to your pronunciation, though, AFAIK we'd need to transcribe the final vowel long, /-ˈeɪ.siː/, because it's not the CITY vowel. In all analogous endings in the OED I've gone through, it's transcribed ⟨ɪiː⟩, but their ⟨ɪ⟩ in that context is our ⟨i⟩. — kwami (talk) 01:50, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

My experience in the US is /-ˈeɪ.si.iː/ (although I haven't attended a national meeting in over a decade). /-ˈeɪ.siː/ is effectively the same pronunciation with the glottal stop dropped.--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:35, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I also think I've heard the extra syllable more often than not, though I'm no expert. I had originally transcribed them with an optional extra /i/. Should that be added back in? It would read /-ˈeɪsⁱiː/. — kwami (talk) 04:47, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

If I remember right, dictionary.com transcribes it with an extra syllable as something like /ˈeɪ.si.i/, though it doesn't generally distinguish between the roses, fleet and happy;; vowels. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 17:40, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Can't find it there, but I think formal dictionary transcription would probably be 3 syllables. More difficult to document two. — kwami (talk) 20:12, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Looking at this, the occurrences of "eae" should at any rate be regularized (I of course would prefer two syllables). The "c" in "ce" is in the US almost always pronounced /s/ in taxonomic endings, although /ʃ/ is certainly understood as an acceptable pronunciation variant. --Curtis Clark (talk) 15:08, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Yahweh is only one term out of many to describe that deity

Yahweh is a term that was constructed by Wilhelm Gesenius (1786–1842) to pronounce one of the names of the deity in the Hebrew Bible. Modern scholarship, later followed and sometimes adopted that term as a substitute for various things. It is not a deity onto itself, it is only one description of the deity of the ancient Israelites. Yes, a school of thought emerged that treated it as a deity and looked into the historical evidence surrounding this deity - but only through those lens.

I feel that's what the problem is with this article. It confuses various different nuances in it. It confuses a pronunciation with a school of thought that adopted that terminology and incorporated it into its scholarship.

Maybe that means we should have seperate articles with its treatment as a pronounciation and also as a basis for scholarship, along with a strong disambuigation page that sepeartes that scholarly treatement from the one given by religious scholars in Islam, Christianity and Judaism - none of which use that term or the scholarship that incorporates it. --Daniel E Romero (talk) 01:38, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I commented on this on the talk page. I agree the article is a bit schizo. What I think it's trying to be, or at least what some editors have tried to make it, is the article on the deity. As such, it would take whichever name is most common and accessible for the deity, which IMO would be Jehovah. But yes, a huge chunk is about the rendering of the name. I agree with what I think is your main point; IMO, all the various renderings sould be consolidated at tetragrammaton, unless they really are detailed enough to split off—in which case they should be "Jehovah (name)" and "Yahweh (name)", and we should have a separate article for the deity at the most common form in English, which again I suspect is Jehovah, not Yahweh or God of Israel. — kwami (talk) 01:45, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Warning

Stop playing with the IPA links. Use a sandbox instead. HTML2011 (talk) 02:49, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

What are you talking about? You mean reverting the links you're playing with?

You are now edit warring, violating several WP guidelines, such as common name, consistency, BOLD, sources, and consensus. The warning applies to you. — kwami (talk) 02:51, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

You play with the links. I corrected them. You have no right to re-introduce false links! HTML2011 (talk) 02:54, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Yours is a move from a long-established name, not a correction of anything I did. If you get consensus, I won't object to it. But you do need consensus. — kwami (talk) 02:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

YOU ARE MEAN AND ARROGANT!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Palatal+nasal

Yes, it's extraordinarily mean and arrogant: Consensus has no place on WP. — kwami (talk) 03:50, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

HTML2011

This guy is continually contravening WP:BLANKING with his talk page behavior despite being warned:revoking the dude's TP access could be an option. Bmusician 06:30, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, he's obviously not having a good time right now, so I hate to push him. He's also rather new, though he's spent enough time in wikispace discussions that I should think he'd know the basics. Hopefully after 24 hrs he'll have calmed down. I doubt his deleting the block notice will be a problem. — kwami (talk) 06:36, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Yep, there's no use in further poking a caged lion.--Jasper Deng (talk) 00:37, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

He seems to be back with a roar!! Denisarona (talk) 10:00, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it would seem he's being disruptive out of spite. Oh well. — kwami (talk) 10:35, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

ANI

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Dennis Brown ® © 12:07, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Your recent editing history at Palatal nasal shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. Being involved in an edit war can result in your being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly.

To avoid being blocked, instead of reverting please consider using the article's talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection. Dennis Brown ® © 12:37, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

• I hate templating the regulars, but you show 4 reverts that don't appear to be obvious vandalism. Feel free to correct me at the ANI discussion if I'm wrong or missing some finer point. Dennis Brown ® © 12:44, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Totonac

Please undo your split and move of the Totonac related articles. You just reversed edits made after discussion by David Beck (Totonac linguist) and myself less than a month ago. Please leave it as it was and start a discussion on the talk page of Totonacan languages. Please at the very least check if there are recent discussion before doing that. The best would be to start a discussion if there isn't. It may seem inefficient to you - but so is this.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:24, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Done. Any reason Tononac didn't get a page but Tepehua did? — kwami (talk) 03:57, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

It was mostly an attempt to centralize the information about the langauges instead of making people have to find it piecemeal in two different places. So the similarity in name between Totonac and Totonacan makes it more likely that readers will look in one place. In anycase most of the material you left at Totonacan languages is specifically about Totonac languages (i.e. not Tepehua). I do think eventually we should have separate pages - there's just not information right now to keep it separate. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 04:37, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Looking at what I had left, it's all worded as if it applied to both Totonac and Tepehua. If it's really only Totonac, we should clarify. — kwami (talk) 05:04, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

The grammar examples are all from Totonac.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 05:15, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

The examples are, but the points they illustrate are said to characterize both, so that would simply seem to be the luck of the draw. — kwami (talk) 05:18, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

RFC

An RFC you may have previously participated, [11], is seeking a Resolution. Thank you. My name is Mercy11 (talk) 15:19, 25 April 2012 (UTC), and I approve this message.

PIE tags

Hi! I think we may have talked about this before, but I can't remember how it was resolved, or if it was :-) I see where a number of unicode tags were changed to PIE. On my screen this results in a bunch of words with a mixture of larger and smaller letters. Plus, many of the roots were not tagged with unicode in the first place, so were not changed to PIE. Also, it looks to me as if the effect of PIE in some cases stops at the first hyphen. Can you tell me where I can find descriptions of the various tags - and perhaps how they are implemented...? TIA Jpaulm (talk) 18:16, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Sure. There's basic documentation at {{PIE}} and {{IPA}}. PIE shouldn't be interrupted by a hyphen: all it does in format it as Unicode and prevent line breaks. Could you give an example of that happening?

Sorry, my mistake: characters with diacritic marks (except for the macron) appear in standard font, e.g. ǵe-ǵṇh₁-ṛ only shows the PIE font for the 'e' and the 'h1' - the rest is all standard font - looks pretty weird! I am using Firefox, so I guess I'll have to live with it. :-) BTW Should Panini be spelled using PIE? Jpaulm (talk) 19:27, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I think it looks fine to me because I've overridden it with my CSS prefs. But it shouldn't look like that. Perhaps (because you see the problem, I don't) you could start a discussion at the Village Pump? I don't think it would do much good on the template itself, since it merely inherits the behaviour of the Unicode class, and it probably doesn't get much traffic anyway. — kwami (talk) 20:00, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll look into CSS prefs. Re Panini, I should have said: in the Laryngeal theory article - maybe it should have been left as unicode in that one case...?

Sure, do whatever you think best. I converted a whole bunch of them, and so didn't spend time on them individually. As long as it's a conscious decision to use one format over the other, I have no argument. — kwami (talk) 00:03, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The mixture of large and small letters is the result of your default fonts. The alternative is to have a bunch of boxes all the same size, if you're using a browser such as IE that isn't sophisticated enough to display a WP article on its own. — kwami (talk) 18:24, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Bharati braille

Ah, very nice. I'm glad you felt like tackling Urdu - I was kind of procrastinating on that one, given how hard I find it to distinguish the points and diacritics in Arabic typography. Thanks for the followup on this one. I think I'll adapt the new layout for Amharic braille, and I'll fiddle around with the Greek and Russian too. VanIsaac_WS^contribs 23:21, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I noticed that you explicitly included Tibetan in the unified braille. Do you have any information on the Tibetan braille system? I have even tried contacting Braille without Borders directly and haven't heard any details about its basis. VanIsaac_WS^contribs 02:48, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Quick thought before we tag too many braille systems. Do we want to update the Writing Systems infobox to have tactile as a script type? The abugida/alphabetic/syllabic to the typedesc parameter. Thoughts? VanIsaac_WS^contribs 03:22, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Tactile is tangential to the script type. Whether a script is tactile, manual, semaphore, or whatever is independent of the conceptual structure of it as logographic or segmental, featural or arbitrary, etc. If we want to indicate they're tactile, IMO it would be better to add an additional parameter for modality. Rather the way sign languages are grammatically similar to oral languages: the spacial modality of sign may be exploited for grammatical purposes, but it is not in itself a grammatical type "spacial" that we would want to choose instead of saying it's isolating, fusional, etc.: Sign languages can vary as to whether they are isolating or fusional too. — kwami (talk) 03:33, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Take a look at Korean braille and let me know how you feel about this. I'll also be updating the shorthands code to take advantage of the new parameter. VanIsaac_WS^contribs 05:03, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Looks fine to me.

Do you consider shorthand to be a modality? Seems like a purpose.

Which other modalities does it support? We have a variety of manual alphabets; things like semaphore, Morse code, etc. tend to be single articles, though, and so might not be so useful to support.

There's a problem with the space before the comma in the type description. We should be able to test and only add the space if the field value does not start with a punctuation mark. — kwami (talk) 06:16, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Right now, I only have support for "tactile", which renders the title in small caps - I thought it was appropriate, given the semi-cased nature of Braille. I will probably do manual/movement systems in small-cap italics. Maybe "mode" isn't quite the right term for shorthands/stenographies, but it fits in with the architecture of the parameter. VanIsaac_WS^contribs 06:34, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Just wanted to point out to you that the {{Braille Cell}} template now accepts up to 20 cell's worth of input codes, and will output multi-cell patterns. I have also added a Korean mode, and enabled Hangul input for the general image and text types. VanIsaac_WS^contribs 11:47, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Cool! — kwami (talk) 11:50, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I will be working on Indic input soon, but I'm a little too punchy to do it right tonight. VanIsaac_WS^contribs 11:53, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Unified braille

I reorganized the table of characters, but compare the two versions and then feel free to revert it if you think it was better the way before. I separated the use column from the notes, and separated each language to a separate line. I think it's better now, but I will defer to your judgement. VanIsaac_WS^contribs 05:22, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

That's fine, though I liked having related consonants closer together, such as the braille which transcribe Ṣ. — kwami (talk) 05:26, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. That's easy enough to fix. VanIsaac_WS^contribs 05:35, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

WP Languages in the Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Languages for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 04:35, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Otomi Ethnologue codes

• Acazulco doesn't have a code. It should either be included under Tilapa or Eastern Highland. It has been considered near extinct - probably the reason Ethnologue has left it out - but it actually isn't, there are about a hundred speakers and revitalization efforts.
• Felipe los Alzati doesn't have a code, it is the only Otomi dialect of Michoacan and has very few speakers - if indeed any are left.
• Chapa de Mota and Jilotepec correspond to Ethnologue's "State of Mexico Otomi"
• Toluca corresponds to Ethnologue's Temoaya Otomi (even though it is actually quite different).
• There is no code for Santa Ana Hueytlalpan which is divergent enough that it shouldn't be classified under any of the existing codes. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:18, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I see you've made and article on Tilapa Otomi with a redirect from San Jeronimo Acazulco Otomi - there are unpublished materials on San Jeronimo Acazulco otomi available online. I haven't written the article because I am the author of them: [12][13][14][15] [16]. I think Acazulco deserves a pager apart form Tilapa - Tilapa is rather innovative whereas Acazulco is conservative and somewhat more similar to Eastern Highland.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:43, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Great, thanks! I hope something will come out in print as well in the foreseeable future. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:32, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Maunus, don't let your authorship of outside scholarship stop you from writing on the subject on Wikipedia. I have written much at the articles on the languages I specialize in because who else can/will do it properly? You've got enough experience on Wikipedia to keep from glorifying yourself, but to give us a much better picture of the languages you know about. --Taivo (talk) 22:41, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Ideally people should know, so that they can watch for COI bias, but I seriously doubt it will be a problem with you. And the results will be better than what s.o. like me can extract from your papers. — kwami (talk) 22:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

yea, if they were actually published I would probably have made the article, but asl long as they're selfpublished I didn't feel good about it.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:05, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Incomplete move

Kwami, something went wrong again (over a month ago) when you moved the page Saanich dialect: While the article is now at ... dialect, its talk page is still at Talk:Saanich language. --JorisvS (talk) 19:42, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. — kwami (talk) 19:47, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Neo-Aramaic infobox classifications

I've just noticed that in some infoboxes such as Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Northeastern Neo-Aramaic and Neo-Aramaic languages itself, but not in Western Neo-Aramaic, display an intermediate node "Neo-Aramaic". However, as both Western Aramaic languages and Eastern Aramaic languages have Neo-Aramaic descendants, "Neo-Aramaic" is identical to Aramaic as a whole, even if the dialect continuum of Old Aramaic survives only fragmentarily (as explained in Neo-Aramaic languages). The "Neo-Aramaic" node is patent nonsense – like introducing an intermediate level "Neo-Scandinavian" into infoboxes of North Germanic languages. It would be cool if you fixed that. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:14, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Since you're familiar with it, why don't you take care of it? It may have been only there to provide a link to that article. — kwami (talk) 11:19, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I can, it's just that I remembered that you are taking care of all the infobox small stuff. But if it's uncontroversial, you need not, I will – now I know that you'll back me just in case. Yes, that might be the motivation, but it's misleading and we've got the lede as a place to link to the article already. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:24, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm taking care of some of the box stuff cuz no-one else is, not because I'm in charge or anything. (I also tend to revert people a lot, but that's mainly because I'm trying to keep the articles consistent.) — kwami (talk) 11:26, 30 April 2012 (UTC)