User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 8

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

Pronunciation of France

Hi Kwami. Just wanted to ask: in English, isn't "France" pronounced as /ˈfrænts/ rather than /ˈfræns/ ? BalkanFever 02:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

The two are generally equivalent. I don't know if anyone makes a distinction between prince and prints, but it's probably safer to stick with the dictionary pronunciation just in case. kwami (talk) 06:18, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I actually did a spectrographic analysis of a whole range of these forms back in grad school: {tense/tents, chance/chants, etc.). I had readers say the phrases "I said "chants" today", "I said "chance" today", etc. in random orders on tape. I then had people listen to the sentences and circle what they thought they heard on an answer sheet. Listeners got only 50% right--which means that there is no perceptual difference. In looking at the spectrograms of the phrases, there was only an average of 10 milliseconds difference in the length of the release between the nasal-fricative forms and the nasal-stop-fricative forms. So there was a tiny difference in production, but no difference in perception. (Taivo (talk) 10:52, 7 April 2009 (UTC))

Yeah, that sounds about like how I pronounce them. The question then is whether people speaking other dialects make the distinction. kwami (talk) 10:57, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

You're right, there is no perceptible difference between "chance" and "chants". Unlike, say, "fax" and "facts", which are distinguished in careful speech. In any case, I wouldn't go with User:BalkanFever's suggestion of inserting an inaudible plosive. ·ΚΕΚΡΩΨ· 15:00, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, for me, the plosive is quite audible. I can't easily pronounce [ns] after [æ], for some reason. kwami (talk) 15:03, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Thx

Thanks for your review of that French-language source re Esperanto. Gotta keep the Wikipedia honest. :-) -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 19:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Classification of Japanese

I've replied. Licqua (talk) 09:04, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Abugida

"rather like the position of the /o/ vowel in the Indic abugidas, which is written before the consonant."

Why do I think it is a typo? Well, because in Hindi and Sanskrit and other nagari-based systems it is the short-i that is written before the consonant; the long-o vowel is written by a diacritic written above the line over a long-a vowel mark which is placed after the consonant. That's why.

Am I wrong?WikiLambo (talk) 10:31, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah, yes, for Nagari of course you're right. I was thinking of Thai. We should have more precise wording. kwami (talk) 11:30, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I see you changed it to Devanagari - that's cool, much better now. CheersWikiLambo (talk) 07:03, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

List of Basques

Kwami, could you keep an eye on the above page for a while? To give you the quickest of backgrounds: the list is supposed to list notable Basques but soon got swamped by people who added just about anyone who has a vaguely Basque looking surname. Several attempts were made to clean it up, lastly by LingNut before he retired. We eventually established criteria (listed on the talk page and at the top of the new page):

This is a list of famous Basque people. It includes people

• born or resident in the Basque Country, unless self-identifying as not Basque (e.g. Galician, French etc.)
• people born outside the Basque Country of Basque ancestry that either speak Basque or self-identify as being of Basque stock.

This list does not contain people outside the Basque Country who happen to have one or more Basque surnames. For people of Basque ancestry in general, please see People with Basque ancestors.

For some - one user in particular - it apparently constitutes to "cultural extermination" (see page history) if you state the obvious, namely that having a Basque surname, especially in South America where surnames were often adopted en masse, does not make you ethnically Basque. We ended up with people like Isabel Allende and Che Guevara on the list... I tidied up the list following what we'd agreed and guess what, there's the beginnings of an edit war. Could you spare a minute and perhaps give an opinion (either way)? Cheers Akerbeltz (talk) 11:18, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, ethnicity should at least be based on ancestry or self-identification. Either way, a claim for any individual needs to be justified. I'm not completely happy with your definition (if we don't demonstrate that people born in the Basque country do not identify as Basque, then they are Basque, even if they have no Basque ancestry), but it's a starting point. I'll take a look. kwami (talk) 11:35, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I agree that the approach taken has its fallacies. The problem is that people can feel very strongly vis a vis Basque(ness). I realise its OR, well, not even that, hearsay, but from having travelled there a lot, I know that people who were born in the BC do not immediately equate that with Basque identity, such as descendents of Galician immigrants, the majority non-Basques in the Bayonne-Biarritz-Angelet area etc. We settled on those as a starting point which we can refine but at least it gets us away from the silly "Basque surname = Basque" concept.

I actually did what you said up there - I basically went by the Wiki articles and checked for claims/statements/refs about identity, including the Spanish and Basque Wikis. It meant a whole lot of people dropped out of the list that may rightfully belong there but just don't have a page yet but it's much more productive to cut it down first to something fairly reliable and then work up from there. But that's not your job! Thanks for having a look. Akerbeltz (talk) 12:08, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

He's at it again... Akerbeltz (talk) 14:58, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

This time he was deleting people. I blocked him anyway. kwami (talk) 15:04, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, he was, though on what basis remains a mystery. Thanks again! Akerbeltz (talk) 15:35, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Hellenic languages

Hi, i'm not sure if you got the point i was trying to make in the edit summary. "Hellenic languages" refers mostly to the Greek language and its phases (ancient, medieval, modern, etc). The content you added has to do with a proposed linguistic group, one of many approaches dealing with the Macedonian language (the web source doesn't work in my browser, but i'm familiar with this proposal). Some linguists group it as inside the Greek language, some as separate along with Greek, or next to Greek, Illyrian and Thracian altogether, and so on. Hellenic languages should be a redirect or a dab page i believe. Ask for a third opinion if you're not sure about it, User:Dbachmann or User:Future_Perfect_at_Sunrise are two good choices. Thanks.--Δρακόλακκος (talk) 15:18, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

As a linguist, I must disagree with Drakolakkos. There are many small language families in Wikipedia and they deserve their own coverage whether they include only one "famous" or "well-documented" language or not. Hellenic is a clearly defined small subgroup within Indo-European that consists of more than Greek and its historical phases. It includes Tsakonian, for example, which is not a historical phase of Greek. That alone is enough to warrant a separate language group page for Greek+Tsakonian. We do not want to discuss Tsakonian in the article on Greek. Anyone looking for information on Tsakonian would be drowned in a sea of information on Greek and might never find the information on Tsakonian. I am continually frustrated in looking for information on Argobba, for example, because references on Semitic often discuss it as a final paragraph in an article on Amharic or as comments interspersed in a chapter on Amharic. This information is very easily missed. The Araucanian language family is another example of a family that consists of one well-documented member and one poorly documented member. But the language family should be discussed separately from either of the daughters. The Hellenic page also offers a very appropriate place to discuss issues relating to the possible inclusion, for example, of Macedonian and Illyrian and Thracian in the group. These are totally separate issues from the issues surrounding the documented history of the Greek language. (Taivo (talk) 15:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC))

Well put. Δρακόλακκος, I don't have any particular attachment to the version of the article I posted (I know essentially nothing about Hellenic), but I figured there should be something there for others to argue about, and maybe make a worthwhile article out of. kwami (talk) 15:48, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

[remainder of discussion deleted as it was turning into a fight and belongs on the article talk page]

I've copied all removed comments to Talk:Hellenic languages. Sorry, if i knew the issue would attract so much interest i would have opened it there from the start.--Δρακόλακκος (talk) 22:10, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Affricates

Thanks for letting me know. I've been blanket converting a few articles this hour. IMHO, the best thing to do is use ligatures like this: t​͡ʃ. there is a space between the ligature bar and the stop element, this seems to be important for some browsers. Mine is not one of them. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:49, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Supervision requested

More trouble on Talk:Classification of Japanese, this time over inline citations. Please keep an eye on this. VikSol (talk) 02:32, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi

I saw that you created the page Albanian languages, but I wonder what will there be new from Albanian language. Whats the difference?Balkanian`s word (talk) 11:20, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Albanian as a theoretical branch of Indoeuropean vs. the language itself. Also Albanian as more than a single language. kwami (talk) 11:23, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Why shouldn`t it be explained in one page?Balkanian`s word (talk) 11:25, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

It could be. But then Gheg Albanian, Tosk Albanian, and Arvanitika could be merged as well. At a certain point the article becomes too broad to be useful. kwami (talk) 11:32, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

For anyone else reading this, IMO it depends on whether Albanian is a single language. I thought Gheg and Tosk were mutually unintelligible, and that both are literary standards, but Balkanian`s word informs me I am wrong. Without that, there's not much reason to have separate articles. kwami (talk) 00:46, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

60k

This is my 60,000th edit—not that I'm counting. kwami (talk) 11:46, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Heh, congrats. :-) Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:48, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Looking forward to another 60,000 ;) BalkanFever 11:51, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Not tonight! kwami (talk) 11:52, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, not with that attitude. BalkanFever 12:33, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Pronounciation

Question, do you know how Trombiculidae would be pronounce (using IPA) Buɡboy52.4 (talk) 13:37, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I assume you looked online and noticed that Webster's and American Heritage contradict? AM is not a very good dictionary, so in general I'd go with Webster's. (And indeed in this case it turns out that AM doesn't understand the Latin etymology.) In general, with family names the stress goes on the syllable before the -idae. So here, the family is Trombicúlidae /trɒmbɨˈkjuːlɨdiː/. The same happens with Latin diminutives ending is -ul-, as in molécular, sο a member of the family is a trombículid /trɒmˈbɪkjəlɪd/ and the type genus is Trombícula /trɒmˈbɪkjələ/. kwami (talk) 00:43, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Well actually, I just wanted how it would simply be in IPA, for the family of harvest mites, and actually, my assumption was that it was pronounced -idæ, because of the old English ash or æsh, and I always pronounced Trombiculid as /trɒmˈbɪkuːlɪd/, never with a y-like sound(all of which are my pronunciation as English words). Well it seems that my Latin pronunciation of the dipthong ae(Amd many other letters also) has evolved from /æ/(From the letter ash), then I watch a video of someone speaking Latin, which then became /aɪ/, and now you tell me that it is /iː/? Buɡboy52.4 (talk) 03:22, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Read the article I linked to on your talk page. That should answer your questions. Basically, Latin <æ> was pronounced [ai]. It has no more to do with Old English ash than Latin <j> (pronounced like an English y) has to do with English <j>. But in English, Latin <æ> is pronounced "ee", as in encyclopædia. However, there are people who try for a more "authentic" pronunciation and pronounce <æ> like English long a, so that -idae sounds like day. As for u, yes, that didn't have a y sound in Latin, but it generally does in English, for example in the word molecule. kwami (talk) 04:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all the help! Buɡboy52.4 (talk) 13:01, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

stem and root

Hi -- I responded to your comment at Talk:Affix#stem or root. Joriki (talk) 09:33, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Correction

in the images

formosan languages

formosan languages

should the "Puyama" be changed into "Puyuma" Ayrenz (talk) 06:19, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks. I noticed that booboo after posting it, and just haven't gotten back to it. kwami (talk) 07:57, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Beaconsfield, Tasmania

The stress for the name is BEAconsFIELD. (i.e. primary stress on the first syllable and secondary on the last). I have no idea how this is shown in IPA. Can you please fix? -- Mattinbgn\^talk 07:18, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Sure. (It's not nec. to write the 2ary stress; that's conveyed by the long vowel.) And hey, thanks for writing above my to-do list! kwami (talk) 07:19, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

query

Hi kwami. Why did you change this? cygnis insignis 14:26, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I see that you mean a city in Georgia, USA, not sure where RP is though. It is my understanding, and personal experience, that people are surprised by the pronunciation; it is distinctive. I don't know enough about this to feel strongly about it, but I do have a couple of queries. When you say "... Australian pronunciation is notably distinct, we can always link directly to the Australian English phonology article.", do you mean that it cannot be accurately represented using pron-en? If it can't, why do you suppose it would only be a 'dozen or so cases'? If it can, why was pron-en-au created? Regards, cygnis insignis 00:32, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Bosal

Hi Kwamikagami, I'm not an expert in the IPA pronounciation symbols, so just wanted to be sure that the tweaks you made to the Bosal article have the word "bosal" pronounced in English as "bow-SAHL" (long O, a pronounced as "ah" and accent on second syllable) with "BOW-sul" as the secondary alternate (though technically incorrect) pronunciation. Thanks! Montanabw^(talk) 23:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes. If you click on the link, you'll be taken to a guide. The middle choice is "boh-SALL". (Is that not used?) kwami (talk) 23:50, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

boh-SALL, bow-SAHL, probably the same thing. (Which is, I suppose, why IPA is used and not something else!) So, can you put that one first? Also, Mecate is correctly pronounced Meh-cah-TAY, not Meh-cah-TEE, not sure which way that one goes. Montanabw^(talk) 23:53, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

The first is boh-SAHL, the second boh-SALL, and the third BOH-sul.

The fully anglicized pronunciation of 'mecate' has a final tee sound. This is sourced in the dictionaries, and is typical of words ending in historic unstressed "ay": saké, Tuesday, etc. kwami (talk) 23:56, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh OK, I get it now. and the Bosal ones work (I forgot about that nasal middle version, that one is sort of scary too, but I digress) Maybe, but that is not how it is pronounced in the horse world, which follows certain rules of its own! (smile) I don't know if it's modern Spanish either (been a long discussion on the topic of Spanish loanwords in the dialect of the American West in the past), but the point is that if you refer to the rope-rein-thingamajigs on a bosal, that is a me-cah-TAY! (grin). (though there are a few folks down south who call it a "McCarthy" (go figure...)). I can live with both versions (Tay and Tee) placed there if that will settle the matter. Montanabw^(talk) 00:13, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Well sure, if it's a specialized pronunciation, we should note that. We can move the general pron. to a footnote. So, is it meck-uh-TAY, muh-KAH-tay, or what? kwami (talk) 00:19, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, was out of town yesterday meh-KAH-tay is about as close as I can get. Stress on second syllable. Montanabw^(talk) 18:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, seems both pronunciations are used. I would guess it's "meh-KAH-tay" in areas with more Spanish influence. kwami (talk) 23:45, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Vanth

Please see my rather urgent note at Talk:90482_Orcus. Iridia (talk) 04:42, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Aquitanian language

Kwami, Taskubilos is trying to weasel in his stuff on the Aquitanian page now... and if you have too much time, User talk:Rana Ammar Mazhar needs a slight rap over the knuckles, he keeps reverting to pre-cleanup versions for some reason and never discusses anything (see last comment on his talk page). Way out of your normal area though, so no probs if you want to stay out of this one. Akerbeltz (talk) 12:04, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Let's see how they respond by tomorrow. kwami (talk) 13:13, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

So far one has continued, and one has not. I gave the former a block warning. kwami (talk) 23:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks mate. Remind me to buy you a coffee some day ;) People behaving like that sometimes make me wonder if I should fish for adminship myself one day! Akerbeltz (talk) 23:59, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd rather be doing something else than using admin tools, but it is nice to be able to put a stop to minor annoyances when I come across them. kwami (talk) 00:03, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Yachats, Oregon

Do you think you could help us figure out the IPA for this article? See the talk page for discussion. Thanks! Katr67 (talk) 15:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. kwami (talk) 16:03, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Second-round characters

I recently found Second-round simplified Chinese character and have been working on both adding sources (it had none... not even a list of works consulted) and expanding it. Given your obvious background in linguistics, I was wondering if you could give it a look whenever you get a chance, possibly even recommend a source or two. I have access to a significant amount of hard-copy reference material and want to make this my first 'featured' article in time.

Asia's Orthographic Dilemma (with a forward by DeFrancis) is listed in the references because I have access to it but haven't had a chance to take a close look. I was going to deal with the question of whether and how much to mention it once the meat of the article - background, reasons for failure, economic costs, etc - is done. Recognizance (talk) 18:19, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I have no sources to offer. I corrected a few typos, but I know almost nothing about the topic. kwami (talk) 22:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

DeFrancis in The Chinese Language Fact and Fantasy has a chapter on spelling reform and talks about the second round being dropped for being too radical on page261 (Hawaii Press1984). My best bet would be to punch 二简字 into Google Scholar and browse through the sources. Akerbeltz (talk) 23:10, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

That's too bad. Thanks anyway. Let me know if you need a second set of eyes or a copy edit anywhere. As for DeFrancis, I intentionally mentioned his name because I had him in mind already. :) I can give the other suggestion a shot but I'm unable to read Chinese characters.

I was going to look tomorrow for someone to help me translate the Chinese Wikipedia article about the second round because there (seems to be) a lot of good content - not to mention images! - over there. Recognizance (talk) 00:40, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome and good luck, you picked a tough one to work on if you can't read characters! Incidentally, anyone know why there are two links to the Vietnamese Wiki from that page? One to vi:Tiêu bản:Hán tự and one to vi:Phương án giản hoá chữ Hán lần thứ hai? Akerbeltz (talk) 00:51, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I was hoping I would get lucky like I did with the table for Chinese pronouns (see my talk page) and find some really helpful people on the translation. Going to exhaust my English-language options first though. The double-link was an interwiki that was outside the <noinclude> area on Template:Table Hanzi. I had been wondering the same thing, but I'm inexperienced and the answer didn't occur to me until just now. Recognizance (talk) 03:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Mistake in Block warning

I guess that your block warning is for Talskubilos instead for Tautintanes.

But just in case: All specialists in Aquitanian and Iberian overtly defend the relationship between several Aquitanian and several Iberian names. In particular Joaquín Gorrochategui (1993), main ancient Basque specialist, in his article "La onomástica aquitana y su relación con la ibérica", which is cited the bibliography and with a title that can’t be more clear--Tautintanes (talk) 18:45, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

This is not the place for that discussion so I'll respond on the Aquitanian page. Akerbeltz (talk) 19:59, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Kwami is who made the block warning "You are carrying an edit war over to Aquitanian language. You need references to support your claims, especially since on the face of it they appear to be ridiculous. If you continue, I will block you. kwami (talk) 23:49, 15 April 2009 (UTC)"--Tautintanes (talk) 22:35, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. I did get your names mixed up. My apologies!! kwami (talk) 22:47, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok. --Tautintanes (talk) 22:59, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

What are you playing, kwami? You're censoring my edits without prior discussion. This in UNFAIR and contraty to Wikipedia's etiquette. Talskubilos (talk) 10:52, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

We have been discussing this till we're blue in the face. It's you who keeps ignoring any sort of solid argument and plough ahead with what you think is gospel. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:56, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Is Trask's argument about TAR a solid one? I doubt it.

I'd like to see some actual evidence. Quote one of your sources. Something like "Iberian ARS "bear" closely resembles the Basque word for bear". Sorry, but we're not going to just take your word for something as fringy as this. kwami (talk) 11:01, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, then I'll keep only those items which are explicitly mentioned in the literature, leaving aside the others. I'm also partidary of keeping the Iberian-Aquitanian list (without Basque correspondences) in the Aquitanian article but properly documented. Talskubilos (talk) 11:42, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Tals, that's exactly the problem, a linguistic correspondence refers to a specific concept where a meaningful relationship (lexical, historical etc) has been established. Linguistic corresponces cannot be based on the pure comparison of surface forms without going onto very thin ice. So dropping the Basque isn't changing anythig as the correspondence between Aquitanian and Basque is just about the only thing that *has* been proven in that table. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:38, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

If they're just look-alikes, then we need to be explicit about that. I have no problem with a list of look-alikes, as long as we give the %age of the total attested vocabulary they constitute (10% look-alikes would mean nothing with such simple phonologies) and are clear that there is no "correspondence" other than this. For that, we'd need to have known meanings that correspond. kwami (talk) 11:47, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm affraid that the Aquitanian-Basque table is also a list of "look-alikes", because Aquitanian inscriptions don't contain actual texts with "known meanings" but just onomastic items (personal names and theonyms). So in essence there's no much difference between comparing Aquitanian HARS- and Iberian aŕs with Basque hartz. It's true than the match rate Aquitanian-Basque is much higher than than Iberian-Basque, so the conclusion is that Aquitanian and Basque must be close relatives while Iberian and Basque must not.

There're also a few Aquitanian items without clear Basque correspondence which are identical (or identical) to Iberian. Other items may also have parallels both in Basque and Iberian, so I think they should be 3 tables: 1)Aquitanian items with clear Basque correspondences, 2)Aquitanian items with clear Iberian correspondences (either with Basque correspondences or not) and 3)Iberian with clear Basque correspondences (either with Aquitanian correspondences or not). I remind you that the Iberian items on the table are onomastic compound elements extracted by specialists from personal names found in actual texts, the most famous of which was the Ascoli's Bronze, a relation of the members of the Turma Salluitana being granted Roman citizenship for their contribution to Pompeyan wars.

References to other parallels in non-onomastic items were deleted (IMHO inappropriately) by Akerbeltz. I think they should be restored, but documented if any. Talskubilos (talk) 13:08, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

But I understand your position as you only reference seems to be Trask. Talskubilos (talk) 13:30, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

My only reference isn't anybody in particular. Instead, it's the general consensus that Aquitanian has been shown to be Basque, but Iberian hasn't been shown to be anything. But if you want someone with more knowledge than me to evaluate your proposal, I'd suggest making a request at the linguistics noticeboard. It would help if you made an explicit proposal on the Iberian talk page you could direct them to: what the connections are, who says so, what their evidence is, and most importantly, how they're received in academia. It's difficult for me to evaluate the details when I don't know the subject.

I'm not picking on you, just the idea. Last month we had someone pushing the idea that Basque (or was it Iberian?) was spoken on the Canary Islands. When people started reverting him, he went so far as to add his idea to the article on *tuna*! After a while we just get tired of it. We don't want to go and check the refs to find, once again, that they're either crackpot or have been misrepresented. That's probably why Akerbeltz wants something more than just a ref or two. What you're doing may be entirely legitimate, but we've seen too much junk, and so aren't feeling very charitable. kwami (talk) 20:40, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Apart from totally agreeing with kwami - Aquitanian isn't just randomly associated with modern Basque. Vasconits, mostly Mitxelena, were working on reconstructing Early Basque through a method of internal reconstruction way befor the Aquitanian inscriptions were discovered to be related. Funnily enough, the forms they postulated for Early Basque were almost perfect matches for the forms found on Aquitanian. Aquitanian, once discovered, was found to match on many levels. It was

• found to match the independently reconstructed forms
• found to match the morphology and word order of modern Basque (such as VMME SAHAR cf ume zahar, NESCATO cf Neska|to, AHER BELSTE cf Aker beltz etc etc)
• most astonishingly, comprehensible even without much prior knowledge of Aquitanian or Early Basque
• located in/near the area of the historic Basque speaking area
• etc etc

Show that to any historical linguist, and they'll sign these two languages off as having some genetic relationship. Akerbeltz (talk) 21:30, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Aquitanian is "randomly associated" with Basque. I only said that SOME random resemblances can occur even beetween close related languages, as in the case of -TAR. Have you evaluated my argument against Trask's claim, Akerbeltz? I'd better not.

And although most Aquitanian have direct correspondences with Basque, some of them do NOT. And a few of these match closely Iberian. Then some kind of relationship must have been existed, either genetic or by contact (more probably). Presenting the similarities between Iberian and Aquitanian/Basque already recognized in the academic literature is legitimate; to supress them, as Trask did, is not. Talskubilos (talk) 08:04, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Tal, regardless of whether we've misrepresented what you've said before, what you say now displays a fundamental flaw in logic which makes me suspect this whole thing is OR. That is, suppose Aquitanian had a word "wawa" which does not have an obvious Basque counterpart. Now let's suppose that Iberian also has a word "wawa", or maybe a similar form such as "baba". You conclude from this that the words *must* be related. That is not so. If Aquitanian "wawa" means "water", and Iberian "wawa"/"baba" means "father", then there would of course be no reason to think the languages have anything to do with each other. It's not unreasonable to suppose that there would be similarities due to contact, and if we ever find a good bilingual, we may discover that Iberian is Vasconic after all. But meanwhile we shouldn't be basing the article on what "must" be true. kwami (talk) 08:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I may also add that the phonological system of Iberian is similar to Proto-Basque's aand there's evidence of at least Iberian loanwords in modern Basque. BTW, the material referring to similarities to Basque of Iberian non-onomastic items by other contributors has been wiped out by Akerbeltz. Talskubilos (talk) 08:14, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The solution is to present your evidence and the citations supporting it. kwami (talk) 08:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Kwami, you said "you aren't feeling very charitable these days". Well, I'm not either. I've other things to do besides wasting my time arguing with you. Talskubilos (talk) 08:17, 20 April 2009 (UTC) Talskubilos (talk) 08:17, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

If you can't be bothered to make the modest effort of basic scholarship then you're right, this is a waste of time. kwami (talk) 08:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Kwami, I don't want to look rough, but have you read the WHOLE article and not just my edits? Because some of the material I'm referring to is ALREADY in it, although written by other people. Are you asking me to ammend things I didn't written in teh frist place? Talskubilos (talk) 09:25, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

You said "It's not unreasonable to suppose that there would be similarities due to contact,". This is why I'm doing, show these similarities, nothing more. And indeed, some items in Aquitanian inscriptions are 100% Iberian after all. For example, the personal name VRCHATETEL from a funeraral inscription in Navarra is labelled as "clearly Iberian" by Gorrotxategi. Talskubilos (talk) 09:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

See comment on the Aquitanian page - yes, the name is stated to be clearly Iberian. However, even Gorrotxateg admits that we can't be certain it's actually Aquitanian, not just an Iberian inscription found on what we believe to be the Aquitanian area. Akerbeltz (talk) 09:41, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't be silly, Akerbeltz. This isn't an Iberian inscription, but a Latin one. In fact, all the Aquitanian inscriptions are actually Latin with Vasconic onomastic items. This personal name happen to be 100% Iberian, so vey likely the individual buried there was Iberian. Talskubilos (talk) 09:54, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: Dumyat

I'm not entirely sure what that means. It is pronounced du-MY-at. The "du" is like the start of "dumb". The "MY" is somewhere between the words "my" and may". The "at" is just like the word "at", or as in "hat". I dont know if any of those would be described as "reduced"? Regards, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 14:28, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Template:Saturnian satellites

I see that no article uses Template:Saturnian satellites. I fixed it and it's ready for use. Debresser (talk) 07:17, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the main problem was that it was inaccessible to casual editors, and therefore thought inappropriate. There was a long discussion about restricting encyclopedic content to mainspace. Sorry for all the work you just did, I think the template probably should've been deleted. Good AfD candidate. kwami (talk) 07:22, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Whatever. Good luck. Debresser (talk) 08:22, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Your recent move and rename

Hi. After looking at the sitewide protection log, I noticed by chance that you have indefinitely protected Names for Americans (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) after moving that article to the title Names for U.S. Americans (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). That protection makes it impossible for non-administrators to revert your move. I am concerned that this protection constitutes a misuse of administrator tools to further your own position in a content dispute, which is prohibited and can ultimately lead to desysopping by the Arbitration Committee. That is why I am asking you to please speedily undo that protection. (I have no opinion as to the dispute over the article title itself.) Best regards,  Sandstein  21:33, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay. It's simply an inappropriate name. I don't care if someone thinks of something better than what we have. kwami (talk) 01:00, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you.  Sandstein  05:07, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Ainu languages and Talk:Hokkaidō Ainu language

Hello,

I raised an issue you'd probably be interested in. --Limetom 08:55, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Kardinal Offishall

I've provided a ref for the pronunciation of his name and put it into the article. Also, since YouTube videos aren't proper references, here's a link which contains a song by Kardinal. About 5 seconds into the video, he pronounces the name. Blackjays1 (talk) 17:34, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Korean grammar page

Well you did cover some advanced grammar tenses that I've never even heard of. I had to ask my fiends when to even use some of those cases so you must have some advanced knowledge. I'm not positive if those are wrong or not either since you knew the other advanced grammars. But as far as I know when you propose something formally in Korean, for example "let's go" you would say 갑시다 (Verb 가다 conjugated with the pattern (으)ㅂ시다) not "습시다." Also instead of "(시)습시오" I believe the pattern is (으)십시오, i.e. 가십시오("please go"). Also if you're interested, you could join my Korean wiki project at http://www.koreanwikiproject.com/wiki/ and contribute similar articles. I'd love to have you on board our project as well.

Take care --Bluesoju (talk) 01:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC) It's good you started the grammar page.

Korean's a really fun language, but I think I'll pass. With tens of millions of computer-savvy speakers, there are plenty of other people who could do this better than me. I just got frustrated that no-one was doing anything with the grammar. And if I screwed up (which I'm sure I did), maybe that will attract a few good editors to fix it up. I prefer obscure topics like the origin of Hangul, or minority languages that no-one else is going to work on.

Yes, -십시오 is the common polite form. However, a complete paradigm would include more obscure forms. I don't know if I messed up with -습시오. I have it in my notes, which I copied from grammars I no longer have access to. I may have mistranscribed or misunderstood it, or it may be obsolete, or perhaps a theoretical form found in verb charts but not actually used. If it's obsolete this should be noted; if purely theoretical, it should be deleted, or at the least put in a footnote saying it's not actually found. kwami (talk) 01:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Russian

I'm not sure if /ɕː/ or /ɕɕ/ is better for <щ>. I imagine the latter would imply diminished force in between the two, but then I don't know what is true for Russian. What do you think? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:02, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that was probably an error. /ɕɕ/ would imply a sequence of two phonemes, whereas /ɕː/ would imply that gemination is phonemic. kwami (talk) 20:12, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

IPA for "Peirce"

In the "Pragmatism" article you changed the IPA rendition of "Peirce" from pɝs to pɜrs. I thought it would be with the "ɝ" (lengthened, "pɝːs"), "ɝ" instead of "ɜr" because it isn't followed by a vowel and so isn't necessarily pronounced with an r sound at all. (Peirce, of Boston Brahmin stock, probably didn't pronounce the r himself.) On the other hand, your version "pɜrs" has the advantage of looking more like a phonetic spelling than like Klingon, unlike my version "pɝːs" The Tetrast (talk) 22:16, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Up here it's considered good practice to write the /r/'s because there's still plenty of rhotic dialects of English, especially in Scotland. That might account for kwami changing it. Akerbeltz (talk) 22:51, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

As I understand it, the "ɝ" does cover the rhotic dialects and indicates that in some dialects the r-sound is dropped.The Tetrast (talk) 23:34, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Since it's a phonemic representation, not phonetic, it doesn't matter which symbol we choose. /ɜr/ is the standard chosen for the English IPA key, but /ɝː/ is listed as an alternate. A couple people have complained that we shouldn't have multiple representations, and should just stick to /ɜr/. That even seems to be acceptable in British names. kwami (talk) 22:55, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, /pɜrs/ is certainly more readable than /pɝːs/. The Tetrast (talk) 23:34, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Flower articles

I see you have added references to quite some flower articles. While doing so, please check if the articles have a references section, and if not, please make one. I've had to do this for some 20 articles... Debresser (talk) 20:22, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Debresser,

Isn't this something a bot will take care of, like correcting double redirects? If I have to edit each article twice, I will only be able to get to half as many articles. kwami (talk) 21:14, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

to do list

original version

• Canis Major
• Capricornus
• Cassiopeia
• Centaurus
• Cepheus
• Cetus
• Corvus
• Cygnus

• Draco
• Eridanus
• Gemini
• Hercules
• Hydra
• Leo
• Libra

• Ophiuchus
• Orion
• Pegasus
• Perseus
• Sagittarius
• Scorpius
• Taurus
• Ursa Major

obscure etymologies: Nusakan, Mesarthim, Phact, Alifa al Farkadain, Subra, Zeta Puppis (suhail ħađ̧ar or xađ̧ar), Kakkab, Alya (yet to look up), Spica (alt names), Skat/Pi Aquarii, Albulaan (spelling), Theta Columbae (etym.), Phact (yet to look up),

Plant genus pronunciations

Does your reference list the IPA, or are you deriving it from some other indication of pronunciation? I realize that these are phonemic rather than phonetic, but the only way I could imagine hearing /dʒuːˈnɪpərəs/ would be from someone whose first language was not English (Everyone I know says /dʒuˈnɪpəɹəs/. I understand that /r/ is a compromise usage that covers all English dialects (although it has the least frequency of use).

If your reference gives the IPA, I won't modify, but rather provide alternate pronunciations when the one given is not widespread.--Curtis Clark (talk) 15:21, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

That particular genus only has sound respellings. (Many others are in the OED in IPA.) There is no difference between /r/ and /ɹ/, so it would be misleading to give both as if they were separate pronunciations. Or do you mean the length in the /u/? If you want to, just change that. We make a 3-way distinction with [i], but occasions to use something similar with [u] are so uncommon that we haven't decided to go there (yet, anyway). If you mean alternate ways of anglicizing Latin, there are several, so best just to give the Latin, macrons and all, and let the reader decide. kwami (talk) 15:30, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean "genus", or the Sunset reference? Although I disagree with the general use of /r/ as the consensus form (and the statement "There is no difference between /r/ and /ɹ/" I find bizarre unless you mean it in the strict phonemic sense), I was in fact referring specifically to the length of the /u/; in my experience, long vowels in unstressed syllables are unusual in spoken American English. As far as anglicizing Latin, Syllable stress of Botanical Latin and Traditional English pronunciation of Latin seem to have that covered, although there are genera that are routinely "mispronounced" relative to their classical syllable stress.--Curtis Clark (talk) 17:28, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Both. I only have that genus attested in Sunset.

Not exactly phonemically. We're ignoring dialectical differences, which means the inventory might not be exactly what any one dialect has. But yeah, it wouldn't matter if we went with /r/ or /ɹ/. We went with /r/—like /oʊ/ instead of /əʊ/—to make it a little more accessible to readers not all that familiar with the IPA.

The problem with "i" and "u" is that it's impossible to know whether the editor means [iː uː] or [ɪ ʊ]. But in unstressed syllables there isn't much contrast, so it doesn't matter much. Change it to /u/ or /ʊ/ if you like. Unstressed /u/ is already inconsistently transcribed between articles. But this is intended to be for everyone, so if an American automatically switches to [ʊ], we won't need to spell that out. kwami (talk) 17:41, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's worth mentioning that genera like Erica are "mis"pronounced. kwami (talk) 17:41, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

So if I'm reading you correctly, all the pronunciations in Sunset are respellings?--Curtis Clark (talk) 18:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I check them with the OED or other dicts where possible when the orthography isn't sufficient to distinguish British vowels that Sunset doesn't cover. kwami (talk) 18:12, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Hi there Kwamikagami! Can you make sure to check that the article has a references section when adding the IPA? I'm sweeping the broken references category and I've come across this problem numerous times. Cheers! Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 13:17, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I just entered in the last one, so there's an end to it. I have added some ref links, but isn't there a bot for that? I figured that's the kind of thing that should be automated, like repairing double redirects, so that we can spend our time on content. kwami (talk) 13:21, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

There is a bot but it doesn't run very often as these errors often signify vandalism, blanking, and a whole host of other problems, so they need editor reviewing. At least I think that's what the problem is... Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 14:51, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Names for U.S. citizens

Hi. I've removed your request for a third opinion for this article on the grounds that there are more than two active editors on the page. 3Os are for articles where two authors have a disagreement, and a third person is needed to settle the dispute. In this case, I see four editors actively involved on the page. At this point, you're really beyond a 3O; try an WP:RFC. Or maybe find a WikiProject that the article falls under, and ask someone there to give an opinion. Thanks. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 04:24, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Plant articles

Hi I've noticed you are adding a reference (Sunset Garden Book) to many plant articles. Could you also add a {{reflist}} tag to the reference section to pages where there is none? Otherwise the page produces an ugly cite error (see red text at bottom of page). In case you don't know how to do this just add

== References ==

{{reflist}}

to the page just above the categories. Cheers pablo_hablo. 13:59, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I left that for the bots. See above. kwami (talk) 22:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks like they've all been taken care of. kwami (talk) 23:56, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Yep! All done. That would be old "Sillyfolkbot" for you! Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits) 02:22, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Metrosideros

I saw that you added that pronunciation of Metrosideros from the same source noted above. Have you ever heard it pronounced that way? I've always heard it with a long O on the last syllable, not an ə, which is consistent with the spelling. KarlM (talk) 18:24, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I've only ever heard it the way kwami has transcribed it and I did a lot of hanging around garden centres and botanic gardens in Australia. Not that that's a ref. Akerbeltz (talk) 19:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard it pronounced. It could have a short final o, but not a long one, unless someone was trying to imitate Latin. Final vowels tend to go to schwa in English (though it is to some extent lexicalized). Generally IMO it's best to go with literary conventions for Latin, since people who like other approaches generally won't need our help. kwami (talk) 21:31, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Why couldn't it be long? I mean, it is, in terms of how people actually say it in Hawaiʻi (possibly Akerbeltz's comment above may be due to the difference between Australian and American accents). The Greek word sideron has a short O, but latinizing the last letter to s makes the O long, as with Sicyos. KarlM (talk) 09:08, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

List of Latin digraphs

Dear Kwamikagami , regarding the article List of Latin digraphs I couldn't stop my bot or another to put an inappropriate wikilink. But perhaps for your understanding, I should explain how a bot work :

a bot scan a page on his home wiki (for my bot it's french) then he follow the interwikis links found on the first page.

for all second pages found, he search if interwikis match with the ones on the first page.

he then check if all the page linked with interwikis exist. If it's right, he add all new interwiki link on all languages pages. If a link is broken, he removed it on all pages, and if a page have been renamed or a link change to point another article, the new link is modify on all wikis.

In the case of a false link, a mystake made by a user that link with an incorrect page, the bot couldn't verify. He take it for a rename or an improvment not for a mystake. So he update all pages, also by error. The only solution to solve it is to remove all incorrrect link on all wikis. Sincerely --GdGourou - °o° - Talk to me 22:42, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

That's potentially several hundred links to remove, since the article was combined from over a hundred stubs. Can't you just put this page on an "exceptions/do not modify" list? kwami (talk) 22:50, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so, because of the pywkipedia framework. But the list should be short, there's obly 10-15 digram on FR.WP. I check these pages and i think i will be ok --GdGourou - °o° - Talk to me 22:57, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. (There are a couple other bots doing the same thing, but one of them is also based at WP-fr.) kwami (talk) 22:59, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I found the problem, it's on br.wikipedia.org. Could you remove with me all the link to List of Latin digraphs from the Digramoù lin ein the bottom navbox of br:Lizherenneg_latin ? --GdGourou - °o° - Talk to me 23:03, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

All correction are done for br. i hope there's not error on over wiki... Inform me if it's not the case. Sincerely--GdGourou - °o° - Talk to me 23:07, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, looks like WP-br is taken care of. Thanks! kwami (talk) 23:10, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

My Dear Friend, Comrade « Gdgourou », tried to correct wrong iwiz, but « Vertigo12, who calls himself a « Redaktor » – pl.Wikipedia, as de.Wikipedia, has closed its articles, and some illiterate guys rule them –, is a stupid idiot ! --Budelberger (   ) 00:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC). (I don't want to correct articles where – de, pl – some bastards approve or not what I do… So, a bot soon will interwikify your article !)

AN/I

Hello, Kwamikagami. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding the ongoing problems at Names for U.S. citizens. The thread is Names for Americans. Thank you. --Cúchullain ^t/c 14:59, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

re: Korean phonotactics

Hi, ㄼ is only found in verb conjugation, where it is followed by a vowel or ㄷ, ㅈ, ㄱ, ㄴ.

Examples:

• 떫어 - ㄹ+ㅂ
• 떫다 떫지 떫고 - reduced to ㅂ
• 떫네 - reduced to ㅁ (ㅂ has gone through assimilation due to ㄴ)

So it never occurs before b, p, pp, or m. Hope this helps. :) --Kjoonlee 17:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, ㄺ is found in 흙 earth, soil, a common noun, as well as in verbs. 흙내음 earthy smell is pronounced like 흥내음, so you're right, it does get changed to the engma sound in front of ㄴ. --Kjoonlee 12:46, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

ㄳ is found in 몫 and 삯, both nouns. 몫 할인 (someone's share's discount) is 목 할인 -> 모카린, so the stop takes precedence. --Kjoonlee 13:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

흙과, 흙까지, 흙 캐기, 흙 하고 are like 흑꽈, 흑까지, 흑캐기, 흑카고 so yes, the last two are aspirated. --Kjoonlee 04:58, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

But the ㄹ is only realized when a vowel follows the ㄺ. 흙은 is 흘근 and 흙이 is 흘기. --Kjoonlee 05:05, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

떫다

For a very long time, I've been wondering how best to describe 떫다 in English; I believe I now have a solution. Put very simply, it's a descriptive verb which means to taste like tannin, like the last drop of tea in a tea pot or like unripe persimmons. --Kjoonlee 14:04, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Supriyya personal attacks/threats of real-life defamation

Ah, looks like you beat me to removing that comment. If Supriyya posts this again, I am also willing to revert it with impunity (just if you don't want to be the only one reverting). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 09:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

She's bragging about being little more than a troll. I blocked the IP she was using, though it was probably a temp. kwami (talk) 09:16, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

re Minories

I'm happy to defer to you regarding IPA notation as this seems to be one of your areas of expertise: it's very far from mine. In fact you've previously helped me out on this very page, so this is a genuine request for enlightenment, and not point-scoring. Why, whenever I use /ɚ/, is it changed to /ər/ and whenever I use /ər/, the opposite happens? Best. --Old Moonraker (talk) 18:11, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

(Answered on your talk page. Summary: to drive you mad.) kwami (talk) 18:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Similar question really – quite a few of your edits insert /r/ into words which would never have them for a native Brit speaker. It seems to me that the /ɚ/ and equivalents are a good compromise, allowing rhotic speakers to see "their" /r/, but allowing non-rhotic speakers to ignore it. For example, "heifer" is not pronounced /ˈhɛfər/ in standard Brit Eng, so that transcription is incorrect for us. However, I'd avoid (and indeed in this case did avoid) writing /ˈhɛfə/, knowing that it would be equally wrong for rhotic speakers. Surely /ˈhɛfɚ/ accommodates both? It seems better than the alternatives, which I suppose are either a who-gets-there-first policy (as for spelling), or a clumsy and repetitive statement of both: "pronounced /ˈhɛfər/ or /ˈhɛfə/"... (Actually, I've now lived in Hampshire long enough that I'm beginning to add a West Country /ər/ to my SE rural/RP accent, but that doesn't change the argument for standard Brit Eng speakers). Richard New Forest (talk) 22:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I answered that on OM's talk page, so I'll put it here this time. Actually, heifer *is* pronounced /ˈhɛfər/ in standard British English. The slashes mean that the /r/ is there in people's minds, not that it's necessarily always enunciated that way. You may not hear it if you say the word in isolation, but as soon as you say that heifer is, the ar pops out. (Okay, some people put in ars after any word ending in a schwa, but I don't believe that's considered standard.) I wouldn't want to transcribe it [ˈhɛfər] in brackets, because now we'd be saying the ar is explicitly enunciated when it is not necessrily so.

Doesn't pop out with me, even with my West Country influence. I use a small glottal stop, exactly as I would with "Offa is king"; I think that is how most standard Brit Eng speakers would say it. You are right that some dialect speakers (Estuary, Cockney) would say "heifer ris", but those would also say "Offa ris" and indeed some would say "a horse" as "a rorse". In any case, if a /r/ is only "there in people's minds" is it not better shown by /ɚ/?Richard New Forest (talk) 19:13, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

No, that's what the slashes mean: it's a theoretical construct. I realize many people do not have an ar at all, but that's predictable, and in any case in RP there is an ar. (Officially, at least.) Writing /ɚ/ is fine, but the only difference between it and /ər/ is graphic: one may look better, but they mean the same thing. kwami (talk) 19:22, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that <ɚ> seems better for a lot of British names, so I've been hesitant to follow the IPA key consistently here. But sometimes there is no choice—with the vowel /ɑr/, for example. kwami (talk) 22:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Although /r/ is used for English "r", the sound represented by [r], the alveolar trill, although common in many other languages, is uncommon among English dialects. According to IPA chart for English dialects, it is found only in Welsh English.--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:01, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, /r/ does not (necessarily) mean [r]. Anything between slashes is meaningless until it's defined, and we can define it any way we want. /r/ for [ɹʷ ~ ɻ ~ ɚ] is perhaps the most common convention when there's no reason to be more precise. kwami (talk) 12:03, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Nepenthes

Kwami, we meet again! I hope you are well? I have just noticed your wholesale change of nəˈpɛnθiːz to nɨˈpɛnθiːz and wanted to question your reason for changing it when we agreed in 2007 to leave it as is? I've researched this genus for over 15 years, and have never heard anyone pronounce it this way, whether here in Europe, in southeast Asia where they predominantly occur, or in the United States where they are widely grown; the accepted pronunciation for the first vowel is mid-central: ə, so this alteration is both incorrect and misleading. If anything, it is sometimes mispronounced ɛ! Please save me the trouble of a manual reversion - I'm not familiar with the AWB! Many thanks, Attenboroughii (talk) 22:34, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi, alas not; manuscript editing calls! We discussed the name in the talk page of a species entry, but I can't for the life of me locate it, which is no help at all. I see your point, though it seems a shame to give in to committee-governed convention where, in practice, spoken convention would have it otherwise. Even I've found errors in the OED, though this is clearly more a case of subtlety ;) I'll leave it to your discretion. Attenboroughii (talk) 09:18, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt response. Going by my understanding of schwa and schwi - the Wikipedia definition sums schwa up perfectly for my accent, which is RP (British Home Counties), and highlights why schwi seems so inappropriate in this instance - yes, I'd pointedly use schwa. Where I've attended US conferences, the pronunciation of Nepenthes sometimes even errs towards r-coloured schwa (but not quite!). In terms of inter-dialectal interpretation of the phonetic alphabet, ə seems a little less ambiguous than ɪ and ɨ, particularly since most casual readers won't have the vaguest idea about current phonetic traditions. Does that make reasonable sense to you? Attenboroughii (talk) 09:18, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I understand; I hadn't considered that GA interpretations might be the basis for your initial decision. Can I leave this in your hands, or should I go ahead and unravel the mysteries of the AWB? Have a pleasant weekend! Attenboroughii (talk) 14:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

TFA: Haumea

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 6, 2009 Nergaal (talk) 17:05, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

IPA for "Shuswap"

Hi; it occurred to me while checking this regional-disambig page just now that our usual pronunciation of "Shuswap" should probably be given - "Shoe-shwap" - since that second 's' is really "sh". I think some people self-consciously pronounce it with a straight /s/ but it sounds artificial and tends towards "sh" anyway because of the following /w/. Granted, the first /sh/ is thicker than the second 'sh' sound a bit, again because of the /w/, but ..... also if it doesn't already have it, Secwepemc needs IPA, but ditto for various other First Nations tribe-names around BC. Shuswap's current in English, and "not obvious" in pronunciation.Skookum1 (talk) 13:31, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks.

Is the Shuswap River etc. also pronounced this way, or does it take a straight ess? kwami (talk) 13:33, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

All of them are pronounced the same way. (Template:IPAlink-en), as it turns out (was on teh Secwepemc page, which has been updated since I last looked. So found it anyway, and I'll double-check with someone I know who lived in the Shuswap River Country (which is not the same as the shsuwap Country) but I doubt very much there's any difference in the upper basin vs. around the lake.Skookum1 (talk) 13:38, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Saw you included both; I just wrote a note to my friend from the Shuswap River.....but wanted to note that the "sh" version is also the First Nations English one; it's a bit of a stereotype but it's a true one, and used in native orthography too which is why the S in Secwepemci is an "sh". There are all kinds of "shoozhie" jokes ("Susie" or "Suzy") and you'll often hear natives, particularly older ones, sace "Kamloopsh" and "Thompshon"....actually "Thompshn", as even in English, or BC English anywya, that's typically prononunced "Tompsn"....(i.e. no vowel, or doesn't sound like it though I know there's a formal neutral in there no doubt)Skookum1 (talk)

If there were any research on it, which I doubt, First Nations English could use an article, but I guess it's original research; surprising that nobody's every done academic work on it, as it's such a distinct thing in Canada; despite all the different language groups there's some continuity, I guess because of the rez schools....Skookum1 (talk) 13:47, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Take out the /s/ alt if you think best. I wanted s.t. to show it wasn't a typo, otherwise s.o. will come along and "correct" it. But we could use a footnote for that. kwami (talk) 13:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

User 69.116.146.211

I have reverted all of this user's contributions for the last few days as all are either incredible ignorance or simply vandalism. Would you please consider blocking this user again. Thanks Gubernatoria (talk) 16:39, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't look like vandalism, or at least some of it doesn't, but I blocked again cuz they're not responding on their talk page. kwami (talk) 16:46, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. All those edits on List of online encyclopedias would have to be vandalism. They're all complete nonsense. Gubernatoria (talk) 17:04, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Pinghua Chinese

As you are aware the Pinghua Chinese page has been repeatedly changed by those, or maybe just one person, using different names wishing to argue that Pinghua is just a part of Cantonese, and removing or changing references to different opinions, and some of this took place after adding a comment on the talk page asking for balanced contributions to the page. I have placed comments here since you have also expressed some concern about this issue.Johnkn63 (talk) 18:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't know whether it is or it isn't, but there should be some discussion, I think. kwami (talk) 21:59, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

In short the situatuation is that now in mainland China, Pinghua is recognised as a separate dialect. and refered to as such in textbooks and survey's. There are also some who would argue that it is part of Cantonese, which BTW means literally Guang Dong language, whereas Pinghua is spoken in Guangxi. Whatever, the present status within mainland China is not a matter of debate, but a matter of fact. One may disagree with the mainland designation, but are present there are those who simply edit out or change any statements that mention mainland China having such a designation. Johnkn63 (talk) 02:49, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Change of letters

I have been wondering, and I thought you would be the guy for this, is there a chart of how letters interchange over time and between languages, cause I made a chart (I know, it is probably completely wrong):

                t     n-m
               /|    /  ɹ-l
              d kʷ  ɲ
             / / \ /
            ð k - g
           / /     \
          θ ʔ       dʒ  z       v
         /  |        \ / \     / \
w - ʍ - h - ʜ         ʒ   s - f   b
                       \ /     \ /
                        ʃ       p

An example of the v chain is the English word have - habban - hafain
And the IE root of this word brought about the Latin capere

An example of the evolution of the Proto-IE word *bʰréh₂tēr seen here, Give me your opinion! Or suggestions & thoughts. Bugboy52.4 (talk) 02:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

It's fine as far as it goes, but it's necessarily incomplete. There's no n-l, for example, or f-h, b-m, v-w, p-kw, k-tʃ, t-θ-s, etc. etc. etc. And I don't get the t-kw connection. A couple of the more common chains are at lenition. kwami (talk) 06:29, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how well something like this can be presented in 2D... I agree with kwami on the t > kʷ, that's a tad weird. p <> kʷ yes, but with t? I'd be more inclined to link that t>ʔ Akerbeltz (talk) 16:13, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Hey, I said it has mistakes, right? And I made it in English class when I got board, I don't really like shakespear anyway 0_o Bugboy52.4 (talk) 16:34, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

                       ð - θ tʃ  g - ɲ - n - l
                       |   |/ \ /        | / |  
                       d - t - k - kʷ    m - ɹ 
                        \   \   \   \  
                  (g) - dʒ - z   ʔ   p
                        / \ / \     / \
                     (tʃ)  ʒ   s - f - b
                            \ /   / \ /
                             ʃ    h  v
                                 / \  \
                                ʜ  ʍ - w

How about this? Bugboy52.4 (talk) 14:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Like Akerbeltz said, you can't get them all. All stops go to ʔ, for example, and all frics to h. You're missing some common ones, like d & t to ɾ (as in GA), and rarer ones, like m to b. What might be useful would be a diagram where the thickness of the lines reflects how common that shift is, but that would be a hell of a lotta work. kwami (talk) 14:24, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Can you give me an example for some of the ones you mentioned? Bugboy52.4 (talk) 19:17, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

GA English has [ɾ] in latter and ladder. Several languages round Puget Sound have shifted from [m] and [n] to [b] and [d]. (That's a rare areal feature.) In Cockney, bottle has ʔ, and th has become [f] or [v]. But w a French accent, th becomes [s] and [z]. Hawaiian historical *t is now [t]~[k]; in colloquial Samoan, /t/ and /n/ are [k] and [ŋ]. In Maori, [ʍ] varies with [ɸ] or AFAIK even [f]. In Polish rz is [ʒ]; I think historically it might've been [r]. But in Latin, [z] became [r]. In French, [k] has become [ʃ], presumably through [tʃ] (and in many French creoles, it's now [s]). In Slavic, [g] has become [ʒ], presumably through [dʒ]. In lots of languages, [h], [ŋ], and [r] become zero. In Spanish, [j] has become [h]: [j] > [dʒ] > [ʃ] > [x] > [h]. Practically every language you look at will have some new twist. kwami (talk) 19:34, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Even within just English and its history, [g] > [j] 'yellow'; [z] > [r/ɹ] 'lose/forlorn'; and [k] > [tʃ] 'chalk'. And then there's the hardening of semivowels: [j] > [dʒ] and [w] > [gw] that's not as uncommon as one might think (confer dialectal English [hj] > [ç] as in 'human'). Two dimensions just aren't enough. (Taivo (talk) 20:04, 10 May 2009 (UTC))

Japanese language isolate

If Japanese is a family rather than a language then shouldn't it be taken off that list? Alex Klotz (talk) 15:36, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

You're right. I didn't see that. kwami (talk) 20:45, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Ennennennium

This has reappeared 4 minutes after your speedy. I have made a report to the vandalism watch Porturology (talk) 06:34, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I protected the deletion. I seriously doubt there will ever be a need for such an article. kwami (talk) 07:06, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

pronoun. problems?

Hello, I noticed that you heavily and subsequently editing pronounced version of Žirmūnai. What are the problems (if any)? M.K. (talk) 00:30, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

It is possible that other cities has problems too, will investigate these issues in more detail in up comings weeks. In other hand you may place a message on the WP:LITH in order to receive more insight. Cheers, M.K. (talk) 10:02, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Akmenė, this city has a stress on e Akmẽnė. Hope it helps. M.K. (talk) 10:38, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay, that's a good example of what it looks like if we only transcribe phonetic pitch (acute) and use stress for the rest: a stress mark before a length mark. I'm doing this for the debate, but I'm not sure it's a good system. (It's a very straightforward system, and will be perfectly clear with a Lith. IPA key, but I don't know if people will like it.) kwami (talk) 10:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Will see, how others respond on the Wp:LITH talk. M.K. (talk) 10:48, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

reply 2

Hello, Kwamikagami. You have new messages at Help talk:Template.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Undid your AWB edit to Joseph Beuys (IPA)

Hi, I reverted your edit to Joseph Beuys re. the IPA template - please see Talk:Joseph Beuys if needed. Kind regards. Enki H. (talk) 21:52, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Mayonnaise

I've started a discussion on the article's talk page. Teh Rote (talk) 20:15, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect addition of templates

I'd like to bring to your attention that adding the {{pp-template}} to templates that are not protected serves no purpose other than to add these templates to an error category and me having to fix them. Debresser (talk) 19:49, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry! I'll take care of any you haven't. kwami (talk) 00:48, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks like you took care of all of them. My bad. kwami (talk) 00:57, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

We try. :) BTW, I responded to your question on my talk page. Debresser (talk) 01:38, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

IPA for tropical pitcher plants

You seem to have made a wholesale change to the pronunciation of the genus name Nepenthes that really doesn't seem quite right. What was your basis for this? Best, Jeljen (talk) 21:15, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

The Oxford, Random House, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries (and there was a fourth, I forget which). kwami (talk) 21:44, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

New user Tintagel67

Hello, Kwami. Wow, are you fast! I see you prompty bocked my new user, Tintagel67, and accused me (again) of sockpuppetry. In fact, I was in the process of blocking or deleting user Iberomesornix myself, but I'm not sure of how to do that. I see you regard me as some kind of enemy, but I am not. Could you please unblock Tintagel67 and get rid of Iberomesornix for me? I have had quite a bad experience with that user, and now that I have learned a bit about Wikipedia, I would like to make a brand new start (if you allow me). Thanx --Iberomesornix (talk) 12:21, 18 May 2009 (UTC)