User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 5

I, Ikiroid, award this Barnstar to Kwami for helping me with effectively editing language pages.

Here's a stamp from the Faroe Islands for you! Stamps from the Faroe Islands somehow promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving something friendly to someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Make your own message to spread WikiLove to others! Happy editing! Vatomanocu (talk) 14:13, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Template consonants

I don't know if you know this, but I've merged bilabial approximant with voiced bilabial fricative so we don't need links to both in template consonants. I thought it would be neat if I had the symbol appear in both the fricative and approximant rows like the uvular, pharyngeal, and epiglottal symbols.

For some reason your edit of template consonants looks a little funny so I'm going to revert it but I didn't know if I should accomodate what you were trying to do or if I've convinced you otherwise. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

With my browser the table didn't display properly, because it uses Arial Unicode as the default font for such things, and Arial's bad for IPA. There was a recent edit comment of having converted the entire table to IPA format, but it evidently didn't work, so I reverted to the original formatting. (I think the problem may be with the table class "IPA wikipedia", which does not actually force the table to an IPA compatible font. If you know how to fix that, that would be the superior solution.)

As for merging the bilabial and dental fricatives and approximants, the problem is that the IPA symbols are purely fricative. The uvular etc. symbols are different: they are not defined as either fricative or approximant, since no language distinguishes the two. However, since we don't have separate articles for the anterior approximants, it probably doesn't matter, and I'm not going to argue for it either way. kwami (talk) 05:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Mine uses Ariel Unicode too. I think most people's computers will probably do as well. I don't quite have the table skills to do too much with that table. Otherwise I'd fix the funky alignment of the stuff on the right (this is apparantly an IE issue since the table looks superb on firefox) and add some of the other affricates. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Hawaiian phoneme is /w/

There is no Hawaiian phoneme /v/, nor /ʋ/. The phoneme is /w/. In native Hawaiian, [w] and [v] are in free variation, along with [β] (voiced bilabial fricative), but the [w] predominates. That's why "w" is the chosen representative in both English and Hawaiian spelling of Hawaiian words. You wrongly put the "ʋ" into the Wikipedia article on Hawaii. There is no published authority on Hawaiian that claims that Hawaiian has /ʋ/ instead of /w/. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.248.13.190 (talk) 20:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, what I've seen has [ʋ] rather than [β]. However, transcribing it [w] gives the impression that it's just like English [w]. kwami (talk) 20:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

In the majority of instances of actual utterances, it is in fact just like English [w]. Like with Hawaiian [t] and [k] in free variation for /k/, most of the time [k] is uttered, and there's no big difference from English [k]. Hawaiian [k] (and [t]) can be aspirated or not, but English [k] (and [t]) can also be aspirated or not, depending on the phonological environment (and also on things like whether the speaker is drunk or not). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.248.13.190 (talk) 20:28, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Taiwanese tones.png

Image Copyright problem

Thank you for uploading Image:Taiwanese tones.png. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the image. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thanks again for your cooperation. NOTE: once you correct this, please remove the tag from the image's page. STBotI (talk) 08:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I had already supplied the info, so I will just delete the tag. kwami (talk) 08:09, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Russian

Two things.

• Firstly, I like your use of Template:Near-close central unrounded vowel. It's a nice choice and I recommend that you use Template:Near-close central rounded vowel in a similar manner. We might even want to have a Template:Close front compressed vowel (etc with other compressed vowels) and Template:Mid front unrounded vowel (etc with other mid vowels except for the mid central vowel) though we should probably bring it up on a talk page somewhere (like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Phonetics)
• Secondly (and I may have already asked about this a long time ago), Russian phonology says that /r/ is postalveolar/retracted. Do you have a source for this? I can't seem to find anything that backs that up. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:47, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Knock yourself out with the vowel templates!

For the Russian, Larisa Skalozub, Palatogrammy i Rentgenogrammy Soglasnyx Fonem Russkogo Literaturnogo Jazyka, Izdatelstvo Kievskogo Universiteta 1963, summarized in SOWL, has palatograms of /r/ and /rʲ/ that are quite distinct in place. L&M say "in some languages different places of articulation are contrastive for apical trills. […] In Russian, Skalozub (1963) shows a post-alveolar trill as typical for r, but a dental contact for the palatalized trill rʲ. This difference is illustrated by the palatograms in figure 7.4 from one of the speakers she studied. Variations in the shape of the tongue behind the forward contact are also apparent in this figure, which shows much greater lateral contact for the palatalized trill. Skalozub reports that the post-alveolar trill had typically 3-4 contacts, whereas rʲ often has only one. The raising of the blade and front of the tongue that is required for the palatalization may make it more difficult to maintain the aerodynamic conditions for trilling. Variation in place of contact can also be inferred from acoustic records. Lower spectral peaks are likely to indicate more retracted articulations." kwami (talk) 05:08, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Iapetus (moon)

Hiya. A bit late in posting this, since it's been a busy week or so. Just wanted to say you were absolutely right in your revert of my revert. Sorry for the bad edit, and thanks for paying close attention! I do suspect that one of the theories (probably theory #1) may account for the positioning of the ridge, but this information - if it ever was on Wikipedia in the first place - has been obliterated (probably by theories of the ridge-building moon men or something). Or maybe that was the theory which explained its placement. Who knows! Anyway, thanks. --Badger Drink (talk) 17:51, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Barq's

needs an IPA thinger and I'm too lazy. Thanks. :) vıdıoman (talk • contribs) 01:01, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

No problem. kwami (talk) 01:05, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

PronAusE

Just seeking an opinion - is there really a need for this template? The words which are expressed in it seem like they could be done in normal IPA quite easily (eg Division of Indi, Canberra or Brisbane). I'm asking your advice in case this is a hard fought compromise from some past war of sorts. I'm all but a native speaker of Australian English, and none of the words I've seen flagged with this template would sound much different, apart from normal accent differences, in any other variety of English. Orderinchaos 08:21, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you there. We have two templates, a phonetic one for foreign languages (where we can't expect people to know the phonemics), and a simpler phonemic English one. Some Ausies weren't happy with the generic English template when it came to Aus. place names, so I made this and its twin IPAusE. Since then, however, there have only been 17 articles linked to them (last I looked), so they don't seem to be going anywhere. I'd suggest converting to the conventions of our help:pronunciation key, and if you can manage that without any bad feelings, then delete the templates. kwami (talk) 08:30, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Arabic speaking world.png

Image Copyright problem

Thank you for uploading Image:Arabic speaking world.png. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the image. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thanks again for your cooperation. NOTE: once you correct this, please remove the tag from the image's page. STBotI (talk) 00:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Image:Arabic speaking world.png

A tag has been placed on Image:Arabic speaking world.png requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section I8 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is available as a bit-for-bit identical copy on the Wikimedia Commons under the same name, or all references to the image on Wikipedia have been updated to point to the title used at Commons.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on [[Talk:Image:Arabic speaking world.png|the article's talk page]] explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. The Evil Spartan (talk) 19:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Bastian Sick

Hi! Indeed it seems strange, to pronounce Bastian Sick's last name like "Siek", but as far as I know, the name contains the so-called "Dehnungs-c", which is seldom but not uncommon in Northern Germany, see for example "Mecklenburg", with the first vowel being long. I've heard him pronounce his name with a long /i:/ on TV as well. — N-true (talk) 12:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! kwami (talk) 19:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Spanish/Italian phonology and the IPA

Hi Kwami,

I write you here because I think it doesn't belong to the IPA discussion page. I was thinking over again about these r-signs, and there is still some point that for me is not too clear. As I know, though IPA can be used to transcribe phonemes, it is used more generally to transcribe real sounds and not phonemes, that's what makes it international and unique for everybody. But this supposes that it should be independent of the phonemic/phonological system of a certain language, I mean, when I transcribe the real pronunciation of a word in any language, every people all over the world should interprete it the same way. So, from this, returning to the r-problem of Spanish and Italian: we have a pair of words that exist in both languages, Spanish and Italian: caro ("expensive", or also "dear" in Italian) and carro ("car"). The real pronunciation of this pair is exactly the same in Spanish and Italian. So, from the internationality principle of IPA, you could not use two different signs just because they are different languages, when the phonological string is the same in both, because there would be a contradiction: if caro sounds the same in both languages, theorically we cannot apply different signs for the same sound, so it should be or ['karo] or ['kaɾo] for both languages, and the same way, carro should be or ['karo] or ['kar:o] for both languages, but not ['karo] for Spanish and ['kar:o] for Italian, as there are absolutely no difference in the lenght or number of trills between these languages. So, now I approached the question from the side of internationality and unanimity. What's your opinion? (Sorry for my bad English.) Regards, --TheMexican ^(talk) 09:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hey, your English is perfect. Better than my Spanish, at any rate!

I agree with you, but with a couple caveats:

If you try to use the IPA for exact values, you'll find that you'll need an unwieldy number of diacritics for nearly every sound. Not only do English and Spanish /k/ differ in terms of aspiration, one is probably further forward or back than the other. Certainly the [k] in key isn't the same sound as the [k] in cookie. Also, the Spanish [r] may have more or fewer vibrations depending on where it is in a word, or simply what mood you're in when you pronounce it. So it's simply impractical to be too exact. This is part of what motivates using a broad or narrow transcription.

Secondly, according to Ladefoged, the Spanish and Italian ars are not the same sounds: the short Spanish ar is a tap, whereas the short Italian ar is a short trill. However, you're correct: If the Italian sound is articulated as a tap, then it should be written that way (assuming, of course, a phonetic (objective) rather than phonemic (subjective) transcription). Likewise, if the Spanish 'tap' is actually a short trill, it should be written as such.

Going by ear isn't always the best way to go, however. Our brains have learned to filter out all the sounds that aren't relevant to our language. Young babies, for example, hear the differences of all languages equally well. After they're a year or two old, however, they loose the ability to differentiate sounds that aren't distinctive in the language they're being raised with. So, one possibility is that the reports and laboratory measurements that Ladefoged relied on were wrong, and Spanish and Italian ars should be transcribed the same way, but another is that you're hearing Italian through Spanish ears, and since Spanish doesn't have a short trill, you just think you're hearing a tap.

To really know, you'd need to know how the tongue is being held in the two languages, which would be difficult to do. However, you can get a pretty good idea by digitally recording a bunch of different speakers saying a bunch of different words, and comparing the recordings. You can use a free download like Praat to check out the spectrograms of the sound files: If the Italian short ars sometimes have one contact, but sometimes two, then they're short trills; if the Spanish short ars never have more than one contact (between vowels, I mean), then they're most likely taps. (See the images at the right of the last link. The contacts of a tap or trill will show up as white vertical bands, narrower and (for a trill) closer together than the t's of 'tatata'.) kwami (talk) 09:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, I will listen to some pronunciation of both Spanish and Italian. --TheMexican ^(talk) 11:47, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

PS: Just an interesting observation, some Spanish speakers are unable to pronounce the long trill, and they pronounce a "long tap" instead, like [ˈkaɾːo]. --TheMexican ^(talk) 09:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. How is that different from an English [d]? kwami (talk) 09:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

As I hear, it will be like a voiced alveolar-lateral fricative (you hold your language in the position as to pronounce a trill, but it will not trill). The stranger thing is that one of these persons I know is a radio speaker (and cannot trill the Spanish rr) :) --TheMexican ^(talk) 11:47, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Lateral? You mean it's a [ɮ], as in Zulu? kwami (talk) 18:45, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, not exactly... more precisely it would be an apico-alveolar [z] sound, which has no IPA sign. Btw, some Latin-American speakers pronounce the single r as a retroflex r or d, this is very characteristic for example in Mexico: pero sounds like [ˈpeɽo] or [ˈpeɖo]. --Mex^talk 19:23, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Some sound samples

I have found some samples.

• for the short trill or tap: and
• for the (long) trill: (the first is a trill, the second I think is a long trill). --Mex^talk 17:00, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take a look at these later. kwami (talk) 18:45, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know how to decompress them. kwami (talk) 00:24, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Shall I convert them to MP3 or WAV? --Mex^talk 07:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

WAV, please. And which program are you using? kwami (talk) 07:15, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I have two methods, one is to open the sound in GoldWave (it's a sound editor) and to save as WAV, and the other is using the "Disk Writer" option of Winamp. I'll be able to convert them this evening, because here on my office computer I don't have these programs :( --Mex^talk 07:43, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Here you go the converted files:

• Vibrante simple
• Vibrante múltiple

Regards, --Mex^talk 14:23, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

In 'simple', raro has 4 contacts, then 1; pero, bravo, tronco have 1; amor, comer may have 1 (certainly not more than that), but it's not a clean contact like we have in pero. In 'multiple', raro has 3 contacts, then 1; perro has 4. I wonder what perla or barca would have. kwami (talk) 23:23, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! And here you go some of that type you said (I've applied some noise reduction so you could hear it clearerly):

• puertas, partido, arder, pobre bebé, cuervo.

Regards, --Mex^talk 08:50, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

In puertas, partido there are 2 contacts (the second isn't released but goes directly into the [t]: [pweɾ^əɾtas]); in arder and cuervo there are 2 or 3 (there are 2 released contacts, and it looks like maybe a 3rd that joins the [ð]: [aɾ^əɾ^əðeɹ] or [aɾ^əɾ^əɾðeɹ] (again, the final ar in arder doesn't seem to be a tap or a trill, but fades out maybe as a kind of approximant. It's not exactly the English [ɹ], but I don't know how else to write it.)); in pobre there are 1 or 2 (1 if the bee is released: [poβ^əɾe] or maybe [poβɾ^əɾe]).

Certainly in your pronunciation, r is a trill before stops, and I would guess that if you'd supplied carne or perla it would be there too. This fits my impression of Spanish, but contradicts the references I've seen. After stops, it can be seen as a tap, but one that doesn't connect directly to the stop, unlike English tree, where there is no separate release of the tee. That could simply be a property of taps: if they connect directly to another consonant, they might lose the tapping sound that makes them distinctive. It would be interesting to see Enrique, el real, and -sr-, to see if they have more contacts than pobre. kwami (talk) 09:34, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not me, but a native Spanish speaker :) (The audios are from the Spanish Wikipedia). I edited some more with r after n/s:

• enroscar, sin radio, Israel, trigo, argos, jugar, trasgo, va a ganar, las garras.

Thank you again, --Mex^talk 10:37, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Water fluoridation

I reverted your recent edit because 1) You didn't provide a reference to support the statement that fluoridation prevents tooth decay, so "believe" is the better phrasing; 2) Water fluoridation does cause, or at least contribute to, dental fluorosis. I have no objection to your removing the "causes bone cancer" part as that is unsupported in any case. Cheers! Franamax (talk) 02:45, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but the article should have plenty of refs for that already. This is the most researched medicine/additive in history. I'll get more refs later, but meanwhile the wording stays. kwami (talk) 06:05, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to get into a scrap over it, I'm neutral on the subject. I'm not familiar with how fluoridation prevents children from dying. You may already be aware that there is an article in Scientific American January 2008 issue (a fairly reliable source) that discussed the issue of safety and beneficial effects extensively. It is a well-balanced article and includes ref's to, e.g., an NAS study. I'll go over it again tomorrow. Franamax (talk) 06:43, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I remember a few years back when they found a forgotten cemetery in Britain that had been used from Roman times to I believe the 16th century. Half of the people in it had died from tooth abscesses. It was a bigger killer than TB, famine, warfare, or the plague. We just had a 12-yr-old girl die in the US from a tooth abscess, and a 4-yr-old boy who nearly died. Abscesses are mostly due to untreated caries, which are largely prevented by fluoridation. When Los Angeles stopped fluoridating, the number of emergency-room visits due to dental problems skyrocketed - at one point, half of all ER visits were due to dental problems. Three hospitals hired full-time dentists for their ERs. I haven't seen the SciAm article; I'll look it up. What I have seen are summaries of research going back to the 1930s. Not even aspirin is this well researched. As with aspirin, you can OD, but that's a local issue due to ground water, and is not the reason people object to fluoridation, which is what that passage implied. The longer article covers fluorosis. kwami (talk) 07:03, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I see your point now on preventing deaths and I seem to remember some of those historical findings as well. One could argue that the issue here is health awareness and open access to medical/dental care as opposed to the necessity of the problematic "involuntary medication" approach. If you can find the references for the Los Angeles experience, they would be an excellent addition to the article(s).

The SciAm article presents some comparative statistics on dental outcomes and also discusses over-fluoridation due to the combination of fluoridated water supply and high fluoride levels in modern (processed food) diets. It's a good read in any case, since it is likely the source of some of the recent additions to the wiki article. Franamax (talk) 07:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I hope do to so, but it might take a few weeks. California is a great case study, because (1) it was fluoridated, fluoridation was stopped, and has now been re-mandated but not fully implemented; (2) their are good records; and (3) other states with similar demographics, health care, and diet can serve as a control. kwami (talk) 08:09, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

A few weeks is fine, it takes me three hours to make a single edit :) I'll see what I can dig up in the meantime. It's a sensitive topic, after all concerns over fluoridation once destroyed civilization :) Franamax (talk) 10:24, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

List of "basic functions of speech or language"

There's a standard list (a very short one) of the "basic functions of speech or language" -- asking for information, giving information, expressing emotion, requests or orders -- like that.
I can't remember what this is called, and since I can't remember what it's called, I can't look it up and find out what it's called. :-)
Do you have any idea? Thanks. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 17:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Pragmatics is the relationship between language and its speakers. A rather sketchy article, but check the links in the sections 'Significant works' and 'Topics in pragmatics' for more details. They cover all the points you mentioned. kwami (talk) 02:32, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks much.

Looks like I'm thinking of the "nine primitive speech acts" (Dore 1975) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act#In_language_development

-- Writtenonsand (talk) 12:08, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Unit order

Hi Kwamikagami,
Please do not swap the unit order on the great lakes articles. They have been customary (metric) for a long time a and most of the source units are U.S. customary or Imperial. Also, you incorrectly, changed some of the precision of the values when you did so. Thank you, —MJCdetroit ^(yak) 02:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi..

Hi Kwamikagami, can you let me know why my edit to article Hindi was reverted? I did not make any wrong edit did I? Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 12:03, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Fine.. But if I'm not wrong, it either isn't the National Language... The constitution does not say anything about that. Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 12:59, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Zouch, Nottinghamshire

It's pronounced "Zotch"; unlike Ashby de la Zouch which is like as you would if you were French ("Zoosh") Swithlander (talk) 09:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Caspian Sea an ocean?

Hi! Thanks for your help with the List of lakes by area! (I’ve also always loved your map of writing systems.) However, I’ve never before heard the Caspian Sea referred to as an ocean – the ocean article indicates that "ocean" refers to the large interconnected body of water that covers 71% of the earth, and the Caspian Sea article does not describe it as an ocean. If you have sources which support your edit, I’d love to take a look; otherwise, this seems like a rather minority view. Many thanks! Citynoise (talk) 18:38, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello again! I agree completely that trying to define "ocean" is like trying to define "planet." There are many self-consistent rationales one could use, but in the end any hard-and-fast definition will have to be enforced by consensus, rather than any compelling force of logic. Let’s lay out the various rationales for "ocean":

• Geological. By this reasoning, an ocean might be any body of water which overlays oceanic (i.e., relatively young) crust. You’re certainly right that geologists classify parts of the seabed of the Black and Caspian seas as oceanic (this [1] is perhaps the best map I found; oceanic crust in blue).
• Historical-Geological. Here, an ocean would be any body of water which is a remnant of the single large body of water as it existed millions of years ago. There are many sources which list the Mediterranean, Black, Caspian, and Aral seas as remnants of the Tethys Ocean.
• Hydrological. For oceanographers, the large body of water that covers 71% of the earth presents scientific problems that are not found in any other body of water. The limits of this "ocean" would be defined through things like water circulation, currents, stratification, etc. (Note that this is the rationale that defines the "Arctic Ocean" as a Mediterranean sea (oceanography), along with the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.)
• Etymological. The word "ocean" comes from the Greek Okeanos, meaning the great river which encircles the earth – the great outer sea in contrast to the inner (mediterranean) seas. See [2]
• Conventional. That is, the common dictionary definition stabilized through everyday use. Here all the dictionaries I have consulted define "ocean" as the single large body of water covering 71% of the earth, or its conventional subdivisions. Here [3] are many such definitions; the OED gives the most complete, but alas I can’t link to it. No dictionary defines ocean scientifically, and the OED suggests that "oceanic crust" is defined by its subjacency to the ocean, rather than vice versa.

My own preferences would rank these rationales in the opposite order in which I have listed them. From my point of view, words are defined by use, and thus can have different meanings in different contexts. A geologist speaking to other geologists would be right to refer to the southern part of the Caspian Sea as "oceanic," and an oceanographer would be right to call the Arctic waters a mediterranean sea, and in everyday conversation we would use ocean in its everyday dictionary sense.

One could, of course, make a similar list of definitions of "lake" or "sea," and reach the same conclusions.

For the various lists of lakes, I see three possible solutions:

• 1, Make implicit use of the dictionary definition of "ocean" and "lake" without much qualification, as was done before your edit.
• 2, Same as #1, but with notes where appropriate to show different possible definitions. I did this for the Michigan-Huron Lake, to make it clear that the article is using a hydrological definition, and that this is a technical use. I could imagine a similar note pointing out that while most definitions would classify the Caspian or Aral seas as lakes, there are some contexts where it makes more sense to see them instead as "waters superjacent to oceanic crust" or "remnants of the Tethys Ocean." (But note that I would be very surprised if even geologists would see these phrases as straightforwardly synonymous with "ocean.")
• 3, Include all bodies of water in the world and dispense with labels altogether. Thus the article would be renamed "List of Water Bodies by Area," and the first entry would be the World Ocean. This is an approach similar to the one taken in the List of islands by area.

Any of these solutions would seem perfectly reasonable. The way you’ve arranged it now, however, suggests that there is one simple way to define ocean or lake, and that the Caspian Sea is unambiguously an "ocean." And this is simply not true.

Looking forward to your thoughts on these issues! Citynoise (talk) 14:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Reversion of phonation page

Please discuss problems you are having before reverting information on the talk page. Reversions are to be used for purposes of vandalism and inaccuracy and other similar reasons. The information added in this case is well cited from good sources and should therefore not be reverted. Any issues you have with content should therefore be discussed on the talk page before removal. Thank you.Nrswanson (talk) 22:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Register (phonology)

An editor has nominated Register (phonology), an article on which you have worked or that you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Register (phonology) and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 16:59, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Let's not edit war

Let's please talk about these issues. I don't want to have to bring in a mediating administrator but I will if I have to.Nrswanson (talk) 02:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

All right, then don't delete information you don't understand. kwami (talk) 02:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

But I do understand it. At least i think I do. What is it exactly that you think I am not understanding?Nrswanson (talk) 02:27, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

The fact that you say Burmese can't have a high creaky register because creaky phonation is low tone suggests that you are confusing phonation with tone. Very low tone does tend to go along with creaky phonation (e.g. at the end of an intonation unit in English), but creaky phonation can occur at any pitch - in fact, in the section on singing (something which I don't know about), it states that people get vocal fry when they try to sing high notes. kwami (talk) 02:32, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

That information on high notes in uncited and I think false. Dr. Greene in the Voice and It's Disorders says the following, "Observable vocal fry phonation through stroboscope measures its fundamental frequency at 36.4 hertz. These sounds may extend down 87 hertz or approximately two octaves below modal phonation. Vocal fry can extend up into the lower part of the modal voice but not any higher." pg 96Nrswanson (talk) 02:42, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

You also have not responded to the information on creaky voice on that web page. Every source on the internet says it occurs at a low frequency. You persist in saying I am wrong after I show you source after source.Nrswanson (talk) 02:43, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Give me more than two minutes to respond before you start getting indignant. kwami (talk) 02:57, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Responded at Talk:Register (phonology). kwami (talk) 03:32, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

IPA English key

I happened to notice that the "dictionary.com" uses IPA in almost exactly the same way as our broad English phonemic key. See IPA key. Is that a coincidence? Or is there a common source hiddden behind te scene? Anyway it's nice to have at hand in arguments. This includes the double quality/quantity indication in vowels and the explicit r plus schwa in rhotacized vowels. It does not use the barred i however (replaced by small cap i). −Woodstone (talk) 21:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

We're both using pretty standard English IPA conventions. Maybe some of the people working on this chart before it went public were influenced by dictionary.com, but the overt motivation was to avoid using the ambiguous vowel symbols a e i o u.

I should take a look at the rhoticized vowels. I don't like our convention. kwami (talk) 21:37, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I saw you added the broad IPA as a column in the article detailing the several dialects. Good move. I had been thinking about doing the same, but hesitated during the heated discussions a while ago. −Woodstone (talk) 05:07, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Affricates (reply)

Yes, sorry, User:Woodstone and I have been discussing this on his talk page; I guess we should have moved the discussion to the Help talk page to let others in on it. Anyway, just letting you know now. --Kotniski (talk) 12:26, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Earth (pronunciation)

There have been several reversals on the pronunciation given at Earth. It had one conforming to the help:pronunciation page and was replaced by various other forms in succession. I reverted a few times. Currently it has separate forms for US and UK English. Neither of them in line with the help file. What do you think is a wise way to act here? Leave it be, or revert to the "broad" transcription? −Woodstone (talk) 14:37, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Water fluoridation again

Hi again, I'm interested in your comments on this. The whole section needs more references, I'm thinking of a few more, but I'm gonna hang back to see how well received my work to-date is. You are probably well-placed to fill out ref's for some of the other statements there too. Cheers! Franamax (talk) 00:44, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I need to find my sources. Will do what I can. kwami (talk) 00:45, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

IPA Scots Gaelic

Hi there. I can see why it might be debatable how to show velarisation (tilde vs superscript gamma) but could you please explain the other changes you made to the IPA on the lenition page? You marked Gaelic labials as palatalised for example, but they aren't and you've also changed the palatal nasal to a palatalised alveolar - what's your rationale please? Thanks Akerbeltz 00:18, 19 February 2008 (GMT)

By the way, why did you put the comment that spirantisation of /m/ to /v/ is unusual (m>v occurs in all modern celtic languages by the way, not just Irish)? Akerbeltz 20:00, 20 February 2008 (GMT)

As far as I know, it's unique to Celtic, which we can take to be a single example if this is a feature inherited from proto-Celtic. It's more than just spirantization: it involves a shift from nasal to oral articulation. The other types of lenition are found in language after language throughout the world. kwami (talk) 20:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Triton

I put in back, and am removing the tags from other articles. These pronunciations can be found in most any dictionary (dictionary.com will usually give a couple), so I don't see the point. Traditionally Wikipedia hasn't bothered with citing such things: the only pronunciations we've been citing are ones that are difficult or contentious, like Charon. kwami (talk) 20:18, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I used the pronunciation from Marrion-Webster in an article, along with a citation, and it was promptly reverted. I was informed that they must use IPA pronunciations, such as in in the Cambridge dictionary. Thus I can not use the pronunciation from "any" dictionary. So I put in citation requests where they do not match Cambridge. Under these conditions the fact tags are perfectly acceptible.—RJH (talk) 20:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I seriously don't think we need fact tags on the pronunciation of 'Earth' or 'Mars', but you can get IPA transcriptions from dictionary.com. You also can convert the Webster transcriptions to the IPA using the help key that's linked through the word 'pronunciation'. kwami (talk) 20:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The IPA transcriptions from dictionary.com do not match what is on the Triton (moon) page. So you tell me, what do I believe? It is unacceptible that the pronunciation guide should be able to bypass the standards that the remainder of the article is required to meet in order to satisfy FA criteria. An editor's word is not sufficient evidence.—RJH (talk) 20:53, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

P.S. manual conversion of pronunciations would fall under WP:OR.—RJH (talk) 20:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they do: they list /ˈtraɪtn/, which is equivalent to what we have. The other pronunciation is covered under our comment 'or as in Greek xxx'. kwami (talk) 20:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Equivalent? Do you mean you manually converted it? Well my browser doesn't display the characters you are showing, so I can't tell. But the dictionary.com shows a nu-like character before the final n, while wikipedia shows a backwards 'e'. If it is a consistent character set, why do they show up differently?—RJH (talk) 21:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

There is no nu-like character, so there must either be something wrong with your browser or your fonts. If you go to the help key, you'll see that we chose to write syllabic consonants with a schwa. That's a convention used in some dictionaries but not others. People find the IPA confusing enough without us using half a dozen different IPA conventions. If we have to find an exact match to use a citation, then we're not going to be able to cite very many pronunciations. kwami (talk) 21:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Well it's always possible that there is a font difference. I'm using a standard IE browser with no special fonts installed, so as with many viewers that makes the pronunciation entry less than useful, even if I was familiar with the encoding. If you are converting the encoding from a different dictionary format, however, that may be considered OR and is frowned upon.—RJH (talk) 21:13, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

---

I asked for clarification of the MoS page regarding pronunciation entries. Your input at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (pronunciation)#Referencing would be appreciated.—RJH (talk) 23:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Huh?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean about conflicting with the help key. Also, I pulled the pronunciation for Pluto straight out of the OED. I'm looking at it right now. Perhaps you are looking at a different edition? (I have checked both online editions: the 1989 and the 2007.) Silly rabbit (talk) 21:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The OED uses əʊ for the sound in no. We use oʊ. If people look up əʊ in the help key, they won't find it, and moreover they'll have to draw the conclusion that it is not the sound in no, since we transcribe that differently, and our transcription is phonemic. You can use the OED as a source, just convert əʊ to oʊ. kwami (talk) 21:13, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Got it. Now I understand. Thanks for the explanation. Silly rabbit (talk) 21:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Berber

On your map of world writing systems, you have a big blue bland (er, band) across Morocco, indicating, presumably, that the locals do their writing in a Berber script. Not so. Take a note in that in to your local greengrocer and you'll get a blank look. Perhaps a blue dot would be in order. PiCo (talk) 16:56, 22 February 2008 (UTC) (Nice map though :).

You're probably right about the greengrocer but even though the Arabic script is a lot more common there's people here and there who can read and write Tifinagh. So I think the band is ok... or possibly a series of dots... And things are a-changing, Neo-Tifinagh is being taught in schools in Morocco since last year and so it's likely to become much more widespread. Akerbeltz 17:07, 22 February 2008 (GMT)]

I didn't worry too much, as I assume people know how widely spread Arabic is. You could make the same criticism of Syllabics in Canada - they haven't supplanted the Latin ABCs as the map suggests. kwami (talk) 22:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

vandal 99.238.15.112 on hangul, hanja

99.238.15.112 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

I think this vandal should be blocked for his/her repeated vandalism and racist slur on the talk.[4] Thanks--Appletrees (talk) 07:33, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. kwami (talk) 07:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. :) --Appletrees (talk) 07:36, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

If anyone complains about me blocking them, here's a sample of their 'contributions':

==Rampant anti-Korean misinformation by Japs and chinks==

Just like to point out the rampant misinformation that Japs and Chinese editors are doing here. I've already tried discussing, at which point it turns into a barrage of insults. Therefore we are going to just continually vandalize these pages until something is done. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.238.15.112 (talk) 07:15, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm making the blocks indefinite. (The other blocked address is 78.129.142.154.) These two addresses, as well as a named account Truepropagnda, have been replacing text and images with "unreferenced bullshit by chinks and japs" in the article namespace as well.[5] kwami (talk) 07:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your all effort. I think these anon and blanking socks are related to Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Aneconomist--Appletrees (talk) 07:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

99.238.17.112 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), sock ip vandal appears to vandalize the pages again. --Appletrees (talk) 08:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I just blocked him. However, it appears that we may need a range block. You can request that from someone more experienced than I. kwami (talk) 08:09, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll make a RFCU file on the vandal --Appletrees (talk) 08:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

It's quieted down. Maybe it was just the three IP addresses. kwami (talk) 08:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

(We could also protect those few articles from edits by anonymous or (I believe) new accounts.) kwami (talk) 08:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I already submitted a file to RFCU. Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Aneconomist --Appletrees (talk) 08:40, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Kwami, the RFCU result confirms that they're all socks of Aneconomist. --Appletrees (talk) 09:11, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

==Sections Yoon and Stroke Order On Language Desk==

:While the English language article Yōon only lists the the palatal -j, historically and also dialectically there was also a labial -w. For example, kwazi "fire" which once contrasted with kazi "house chores". The palatal -j only followed the orthographic -i. However, the labial -w followed the orthographic -u. Bendono (talk) 09:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm confused by what you mean with the word: "followed".

And regarding ==Stroke Order==:

Stroke Order

:::::::I didn't make this up; the article katakana lists it.Asrghasrhiojadrhr (talk) 06:13, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Asrghasrhiojadrhr (talk) 06:33, 3 March 2008 (UTC).

The first part wasn't me. However, Bendono means that you use yagyō yōon (small ya, yu, yo) with syllabographs ending in i (ti, si, ni, ki, etc.) and wagyō yōon (small wa) with syllabographs ending in u (ku, gu).

Also, I said just now on that page that I wasn't accusing you of making anything up! kwami (talk) 06:43, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Pardon me, I meant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana#Table_of_katakana lists it with references.Asrghasrhiojadrhr (talk) 06:44, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Oops, your right, that wasn't you, it was Bendono. Haha.Asrghasrhiojadrhr (talk) 06:46, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Kindly stop.

I request that you stop edit warring on pages such as List of albedo features on Mercury. I have offered to compromise by having no pronunciation listed at all, but apparently you insist on forcing your pronunciation system on these pages (which you have no other interest in). This has the character of harassment, and if continued, I will have no choice but to deal with it as such. RandomCritic (talk) 03:55, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want to bring it up at MOS or wherever, fine. But I hardly see how adjusting the transcriptions to fit Wikipedia's IPA conventions is "vandalism". My interest is in seeing that people are able to pronounce words and names that they're likely to have trouble finding in a dictionary, and that we stick to one standard. If you want to change the standard, fine. Bring it up at MOS. kwami (talk) 07:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

My guess is that for the average native speaker of English, most of the IPA transcriptions are gibberish. How many people can really read the one for EARTH? I'm not against having IPA pronunciations, but I think a realistic and user-friendly approach would be to use some-thing more like what English dictionaries (OED, Merriam-Webster, American Heritage - I don't really care much which, since all of them are readily understandable in a short time, unlike IPA) use (or give parallel examples) in addition. User:Kdammers 01:39, 2008 April 6

Kdammers, that's just not practical because they're not "absolute" systems but use "regional". You'd end up having to come up with a different regional standard for every language/language family. And actually you're wrong... it's true that relatively few English monoglots are very familiar with the IPA but outside the English speaking world it's much more common. Look into any major French/German/Spanish/Italian dictionary and you'll find they use the IPA rather than come up with a new system for each dictionary. You can't just look at your region alone and extrapolate to the rest of the globe.

I don't see it that way. As long as there is an IPA transcription, the purists should be satisfied, and the average user can get a pretty good idea from any of the common transcriptions. The comment about regional differences applies to a cetain extent to IPA as well (consider Marry/merry/Mary and cot/caught). Yes, European dictionaries usually use IPA, but at least in Korea it is not particularly wide-spread. Even though I've studied linguistics, I just ignore a lot of the Wik IPA transcriptions as not worth the bother.Kdammers (talk) 00:18, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

And the approach is totally counter-intuitive. If the IPA is a good thing but English speakers are ignorant of the IPA then we should find ways of helping them familiarise themselves with it, not give up and resort to unreliable methods. Look at it this way, if your children were bad at long division, would you want the teachers to help them improve or would you want them to dumb down maths instead? Akerbeltz 20:33, 6 April 2008 (GMT)]

The IPA was designed to cover ALL languages (which it does with a great deal of success, though certainly not perfectly). It's like using a cannon to kill a mosquito: sure, it works, but it's over-kill. I'm not going to have my kid do long division to calculate 8/2. Kdammers (talk) 00:18, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Then perhaps you should consider collaborating with the Simple English Wiki Project, not the main English one. People who are looking for the kind of "detail" you seem to be suggesting rarely use any sort of pronunciation guide but will usually just make a stab at reading the word and live with the result. I agree that there's no need to be deliberately obscure but the idea of an encyclopedia is to give information as accurate as possible, not to cater for every level of education/ignorance. And by the way, pronounciation isn't a mosquito... more like an elephant. I'm suprised you seem to think it's such a negligible element of language. Every intro to linguistics lecture covers the fact that sounds are the basic units of a language, even in English speaking countries ; ) Akerbeltz 11:38, 7 April 2008 (GMT)]

Sentence comparisons

Kwamikagami, let's look at sentences. A: Although no country has adopted the language officially, it has enjoyed continuous usage by a community estimated at between 100,000 and 2 million speakers for over a century. B: No country has adopted the language officially. Esperanto had continuous usage by a community estimated at between 100,000 and 2 million speakers for over a century.

B is better as it is not implying that Esperanto has this super-special innate quality that made it overcome an obstacle. WhisperToMe (talk) 05:54, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, sort-of. I read it as simply saying that despite not achieving its goals of gaining official recognition, it has increased somewhat in popularity. I don't see how that implies any "super-special innate quality". However, the "had" implies that currently it has no speakers at all, and that's why I reverted it. (Sorry, I think that's the edit where I hit the 'enter' key when I tried to type a dash to add a comment explaining my edit - on my keyboard, 'hyphen' and 'enter' are adjacent.) kwami (talk) 07:11, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

ǂHõã language (clicks)

Ah, I read it as 'velar' being the click onset. Like 'alveolar click' being an apical click at the alveolar ridge, regardless of where the closure is. And a click with a velar onset is impossible. I don't know why I didn't realise that it was about the closure, because I saw it in the phoneme inventory. Still; is this the right way of referring to it? Because I find it rather ambiguous. I'm not very familiar with languages with clicks (I just know how they work and I can pronounce a few), so I don't know what is the common way of describing a click in words. But the way it is in the introduction of ǂHõã, it seems to suggest that 'uvular clicks' contrast with 'dental clicks', 'alveolar clicks', etc. Thanks for your clarification. —Nay 4 March 2008

Rongorongo

Half-way through this article and loving it! Absolutely fascinating. Lots of sourced material, with sober comments regarding significance. Great variety of sources and opinions, suggesting thoroughness without creating confusion. Clear and appropriate text, logical structure. Will think more about overall layout and details of prose style and comment or edit.

Thanks for alerting me to this article. An education in a topic I thought I'd never get a chance to research. Cheers. Alastair Haines (talk) 02:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you're enjoying it. We don't know how much it truly represents language, but it doesn't seem to resemble the structure of the proto-writing systems I've seen. And the cultural transfusion hypothesis doesn't hold up IMO - which means this could be one of only three ex nihilo inventions of writing in the world - quite remarkable. kwami (talk) 03:29, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much for providing the article. As you say, it could be an altogether independent script, which is really quite significant. I noticed the austronesian cognate vocab. Javanese script was probably around prior to the settling of Easter Island, but obviously there's no connection. Easter Island is an amazing microcosmic cultural history. If only we had more documents! Thanks again, I'll have another look, and I'll drop a line at FAC. Alastair Haines (talk) 15:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Rings of Rhea

Hi KK. Nice work. This seems to me like a good opportunity to submit to DYK. I've never done that; have you? Please let me know if there's anywhere I can chime in with support. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 19:05, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Hey, that's an idea! I never have either. — kwami (talk) 19:37, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Hiragana misinformation?

Greetings! I have had the chance to talk to you years ago about something linguistic, if I remember correctly, and I randomly stumbled on your talk page again right when I was thinking that the hiragana page is slightly incorrect. On the Gojūon page about ordering hiragana, (and on the hiragana page to some extent) it claims Gojuon is "a Japanese ordering of kana. Gojū (五十) means "fifty," and on (音,On'yomi) means 'sound', so gojūon means 'fifty sound' ordering. Despite the name, it only contains 46 common sounds, plus two no longer in use." But that seems to be in error. According to this page [6] (and others) there used to be a full set proposed in the Meiji era, if I'm　not mistaken. I'm half asleep right now, and should go to bed. If you back me up on this, I'm willing to somehow change the wording and add the two missing archaic (since two other archaic characters make the chart) characters into the chart. I made two images to do that, you are welcome to do it yourself if you see fit. I just want some feedback before changing something that seems so "set in stone" in the wording of the article. Check out this one, (yi) and (ye) this one ... Best regards, Nesnad (talk) 18:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

There are several possible interpretations of that. We'd require the actual promulgation of the name. I'll answer on your talk page. — kwami (talk) 18:46, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I guess I didn't express my question in the right way though. I am wondering if you think it would be out of the place to add these meiji era characters to the chart, since it already has archaic characters. Of course I would put a foot note and what not on there if I did that. Although as you mentioned, I am also wondering if the page is mistaken to say it is named after the spaces in the chart. Evidence seems to point to characters for all slots. Hentaigana and what not. But you're right about that part, we'd need more evidence to show that I suppose. Nesnad (talk) 05:12, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Speak of the devil, I was making that hentaigana comment on your talk page while you were writing here. I think the hiragana would be inappropriate. They seem to be plain ol' hentaigana, and if they were coöpted, that use wasn't widespread. As far as I can tell, they aren't parallel to the three extra katakana. — kwami (talk) 05:19, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Great minds think alike. haha. So you are saying these were not in common use during the era of their introduction? As in, they don't need to be added to the chart? Although I just went and looked at the katakana chart and it has these characters, and even a link to one of the pages I looked at. Why not on the hiragana charts? Cheers. Nesnad (talk) 05:26, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I am simply clueless as to the history of this. The three extra katakana appear to have been created for the purposes of filling in the chart. Yi and ye appear to my eyes to be graphic modifications of i and e. Katakana wu is somewhat different: It comes from the same kanji as katakana u, 宇, but from the bottom element rather than the top. That is, it is an invented hentai katakana.

The hiragana ye and yi, however, are merely existing hentaigana for e and i that were coöpted to serve as distinct characters. That is, they aren't distinct in normal usage. I have no idea how common or widespread this ad hoc pedagogical use ever was, but I know that the regular use of hentai i and e as i and e was normal — millions of people used them in writing, and they can still be found on shop fronts. If I had to guess, I'd say that, maybe, the person or committee that invented this system to fill out the kana charts with a distinct kana for each cell used hentaigana for the hiragana chart because they were convenient, but had to invent new kana for the katakana chart because the katakana system didn't have hentaigana (or not many, anyway).

The question, then, is why the ad hoc katakana should be covered in our charts when the hiragana aren't. We're getting really close to just making things up here. However, there can be no confusion with the ad hoc katakana: AFAIK (which isn't much), they were never used for anything but this pedagogical purpose. Therefore while adding them to the chart may or may not be justified (I don't want to hazard an opinion), it won't do much harm even if it isn't justified, and is just a bit of fun, a historical curiousity. However, in the case of the hiragana, these are normal forms for i and e. Claiming that they represent yi and ye is extremely misleading. It would be like saying in English that <a> is the letter for the vowel in cat while <ɑ> is the letter for the vowel in father. You might do that when teaching children to read, but it doesn't belong in a chart of the English alphabet. It would make people think those words should be spelled "cat" and "fɑther", and that the spelling "father" was incorrect — clearly not an appropriate thing to say in an encyclopedia.

So, sorry. I think the hiragana article needs to be reworded, and please go ahead and add a asterisk to those cells to explain that (perhaps in teaching alphabets?) some kana charts coöpted hentaigana for this purpose, but my opinion is that it would be unfair to actually add them to the chart as if there were real hiragana with these values. — kwami (talk) 06:00, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Pardon my thickness on the matter, but don't characters such as ん also come from hentaigana? So just not including the characters because they are from hentaigana, doesn't seem fair. Also, I must point out worrying about "confusing the learner" has nothing to do with an encyclopedia page. It's about information, not teaching someone how to spell in Japanese... and besides being that characters such as ゑ are on the hiragana page even though they are rarely used at all in modern Japanese. It seems with a proper footnote these characters should be able to be added to the chart, even if simply a "historical curiosity" as that is what Wikipedia is about, liberating knowledge, no? Am I confusing myself about this? Cheers, Nesnad (talk) 15:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe you're correct, that ん originated in a hentaigana for mu, but it is now completely standardized with the value N. On the other hand, these other hentaigana continued to be used for their original values (AFAIK) long after their new ad hoc values were forgotten. ゑ is different: It is a normal kana that became redundant when Japanese /w/ dropped out before all vowels but /a/, but nonetheless it continued in standard use until just sixty years ago. It's easy enough to find books with ゑ in them, but I've never since these special hentaigana values anywhere but those Meiji Era pedagogic charts. As far as I can tell, they're the kana equivalent of the extra letters in Pitman's teaching alphabet.[7] I would object to adding Pitman's extra letters to English alphabet; however, you'll notice that article includes an obsolete order ending in X Y Z & ⁊ Ƿ Þ Ð Æ, which is equivalent to including ゑ etc. in kana (except that it's a thousand years old, not just sixty). — kwami (talk) 18:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Black holes

Just wanted to say that was probably the most fascinating question I’ve seen on the Reference Desk in a very long time. — Knowledge Seeker দ 02:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. It'll be nice if we get an answer! — kwami (talk) 05:04, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Kwomtari languages

Thanks for a very nice job incorporating material from Baron's survey into the Kwomtari and Left May - Kwomtari pages. MarcusCole12 (talk) 08:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

List of words of disputed pronunciation

This edit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_words_of_disputed_pronunciation&diff=next&oldid=172889508 seems to have broken all the external links on the page. Since there have been a number of subsequent edits, the 'undo' button doesn't work here, and they'll have to be fixed by hand. Nohat (talk) 06:20, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry. They should now be fixed. — kwami (talk) 06:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Harvard refs

Hi Kwami. If you don't get an answer to your question at WT:CITE, try the GA or FA folks. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 23:44, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Intelligibility of Chaozhou with other southern Min dialects

Hello Kwami, I see that you have added an analogy to the intelligibility between southern Min dialects and was wondering where you obtained this piece of information from and whether you could quote the source, or I'm afraid it does not comply with Wikipedia's policy of verifiability and has to be taken out:

"It has low intelligibility with other Min Nan dialects, having fewer words in common than German has with English." Shingrila (talk) 05:53, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

That comes from Min Nan#Mutual intelligibility. If those sources are not adequate, please delete or modify the comment as you see fit. — kwami (talk) 06:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I think that's adequate, but does Wikipedia have a system of quoting sources from another Wikipedia entry? Shingrila (talk) 06:19, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

No, not unless you're summarizing another article with a {{main}} tag or something similar, in which case you likely won't need refs. Otherwise it's best to copy over the sources you want. Sorry, that was one of a couple dozen articles with tone that I was making quick fixes to, and I didn't spend the time to do it right. — kwami (talk) 19:33, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Meitei Mayek script

I did, but who knows who is right.68.148.164.166 (talk) 09:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't have any qualms interpreting "18 alphabets" as "18 akshara". Meithei isn't a likely candidate for 18 alphabets. — kwami (talk) 19:41, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Alsatian lenes

In the article voice (phonetics), you have written an interesting remark on Alsatian stops: That the glottis may be "positioned for voicing" without vibrating. That sounds like an interesting idea to me, so I'd be interested in the sources. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 10:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for eavesdropping here, but I think the same happens in Thai /k/ (ก). That many be the reason English textbooks sometimes transcribe it by "g". −Woodstone (talk) 10:28, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Mach, I could've sworn that was in Ladefoged SOWL, but the closest I can find now is a comment that 'voiced' stops often have no vibration in Germanic languages. Godefroy might be able to help you; I made that edit after a discussion with him.

Eavesdropping, Woodstone? I'm outraged. You'd think this was a public discussion or something! Well, two can play at that game: Just you wait, some day I might chime in on your talk page!

I'd always thought that Thai /k/ was transcribed <g> because its VOT was closer to half-voiced English /g/ than to aspirated English /k/. SOWL doesn't say anything in particular about Thai tenuis stops, but does say that the voiced stops are stiff or even creaky. But maybe you're on to something: If the voiced stops are further along the voicing scale than modal voice, perhaps the tenuis stops are as well, if for no other reason than to maximize the distinction between /th, t, d/. — kwami (talk) 10:42, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess you're referring to User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 4#Alsatian (which was in response to User talk:Godefroy#Alsatian) which refers to [8]? That does not seem to be a very solid source.

I understand that the habit of using 'voiced sign' + 'voiceless diacritic' ([b̥ d̥ ɡ̊]) belongs to a diversity of transcriptions that have originated because the IPA signs taken from French orthography, a language with a clear voiced-voicless opposition, are perceived to be inappropriate for the transcription of the Southern German all-voiceless fortis-lenis oppositions. I think 'voiced sign' + 'voiceless diacritic' is nothing but an ad-hoc transcription that has spread, though it is by no means an accepted standard. It seems to be quite common in works on Alemannic dialects (see for instance as a random example the transcription [z̥iːb̥ə] 'to sieve': [9]) – and it is also extended to all lenes even though they don't correspond to a voiced sound in any variety of German (for instance [ʒ̊lɑːv̥]: [10], p. 11, which corresponds to standard German [ʃlɑːf] 'sleep'). While it seems to me that the transcription of the lenes in this way is comparatively widespread (though there are those who use simple 'voiced sign' for voiceless lenes, for instance [blibə] 'stay' in the graph [11]), the transcription of the corresponding fortes seems to vary between single 'voiceless sing' (see [b̥et] or [b̥rux] in the first above example [12]) and doubled 'voiceless sign' (see [v̥iʃʃ] 'fish' or [ʒ̊ritt] 'pace' in the second above example). I've also seen a monography that suggested transcribing the lenes with single 'voiceless sign' and the fortes with doubled 'voicless sign' (in a similar manner as in the Finnish orthography): Astrid Kraehenmann [sic] (2003): Quantity and Prosodic Asymmetries in Alemannic, Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 3-11-017680-7. That monography argues that what is traditionally called a fortis-lenis opposition is phonologically a quantity opposition. I think I've seen other works that also have measured a difference in acoustic quantity. However, it seems to me that there is no unanimity about the phonological interpretation, so for the time being, the diversity of transcriptions will stay – at least in what concerns Alemannic varieties; I don't know about Thai.

So I suppose there is no source for 'glottis disposed to vibrate but not vibrating'? -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 13:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't recall what the source was. There may have been discussion on a different page, though I can't find one. That's what you should ask Godefroy about. It wasn't the Orthographe de l'alsacien site. — kwami (talk) 17:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure? He made no other contributions in that time.[13] But sure, there are many more means of communication then en.wikipedia-contributions: I'll ask him anyway. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 18:03, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I only remember that I had changed voiceless voiced stops to tenuis stops in some Alsatian names, and that Godefroy argued for restoring them. I don't know if there might have been discussion on a user IP page, or if I found some other source, because the discussion you've pointed out is hardly enough to make such a claim on. Best to delete it if we can't justify it. However, we need some justification of the transcription, either that or change the IPA transcription of Alsatian place names, and that's what got Godefroy involved in the first place. — kwami (talk) 19:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think sources as the ones I've pointed to are a sufficient source. They show that this kind of transcription is in actual scientific use for Alemannic varieties. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 06:51, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's used. But if we're going to use it, we need to explain what it means. What's the difference between [b̥] and [p]? If we can't explain it, then we can hardly expect our readers to understand it. — kwami (talk) 17:14, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

It's easy to explain: It's a fortis-lenis contrast that does explicitly not rely on voice. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ 16:48, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Question about IPA

Hi, I'm getting interested in IPA system but do not read the whole article yet. Why does Hangul article have the two pronunciation templates like the below? Doesn't the article have to have only one template for consistency? What is difference between the two? Thanks in advance. --Appletrees (talk) 04:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Hangul (Template:PronEng, or Korean )

They are the English and Korean pronunciations, respectively. Wikipedia pronunciations should be in English unless otherwise stated. Also, if you follow the first link (the "pronounced"), you'll find a simplified IPA key specifically for English. — kwami (talk) 06:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the answer, but I still don't understand why the two pronunciations are needed because slight difference makes people misunderstand or mistake with another word. If I spell and read the first one in Korean, it is "항굴", not "한글". I also wonder why "ㄱ" is spelled "k" sound with th IPA. --Appletrees (talk) 13:57, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Why would you spell an English word in Korean and expect it to be good Korean? Also, I don't understand your comment about the "k". — kwami (talk) 17:10, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm.. 'hangul' is a purely native English word? It is from Korean language. The above two pronunciations are so different, I think putting one IPA template is enough for the article, because it is confusing. As for the "k", as you know that in the revised romanization, 'ㄱ' and 'ㅋ' sounds are spelled "g" and "k" respectively. I put IPA pronunciation into Bulgogi and it is weird that bulgogi is sounded "pulkoki" in the system. The IPA help or main article don't have the Korean phonology and I am curious it is designated by scholars or you or other editors here.--Appletrees (talk) 17:40, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course it comes from Korean. That's irrelevant: it has an English pronunciation. Bulgogi was incorrectly linked to the English IPA chart. That's now been fixed. Revized Romanization is also irrelevant. — kwami (talk) 18:05, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I'm confused because I have not read the whole related articles on IPA but I referred the pronunciations from Korean phonology article. "ㄱ" consonant is spelled "k" according to the article. The reason I mentioned the revised romanization is to show the different pronunciation. I must learn liguistic terms to explain what I feel weird about the system though.--Appletrees (talk) 18:08, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I see where you're coming from. The IPA was designed to be independent of orthography. It doesn't matter whether you use RR, Wade-Guiles, Yale, hangul, or hanja to write Korean; the IPA indicates the pronunciation, independently of any of that. That said, you can transcribe phonetics or phonemics. Phonetically, ㄱ is [k] at the beginning and end of a word, but [g] between vowels. Phonemically, it's always the same speech sound, which you can transcribe however you see fit. (As long as you explain yourself.) Normally, however, ㄱ is transcribed /k/, while ㅋ is transcribed /kʰ/, because voicing is not important in Korean, while aspiration is important. — kwami (talk) 18:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind answer. I strongly feel like I need to learn the system first to communicate with you or raise anything related IPA. I just wanted to insert an IPA template to Korean related article because for non-Korean speakers, Korean titles are hard to properly pronounciate such as Tangpyeongchae. I frequently saw someone complaining about the inconsistency of Korean romanization, so using IPA is a good option for them (uploading relevant ogg file is much ideal though). --Appletrees (talk) 18:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me for overreading your conversation. Providing transcriptions for IPA-literate folks may be a very good idea, but will also lead to more inconsistency due to this project being a wiki. Try it, but be aware that people will disagree on how to transcribe Korean and frequently "correct" each other's transcriptions, resulting in different IPA for (roughly) the same sound in different articles. If there is a 국립국어원-sanctioned pronunciation dictionary, let's use that. The 표준국어대사전 provides neither phonetic nor phonemic IPA transcriptions, just ordinary Hangul, e.g. “곱소리 [-쏘-]”. Wikipeditor (talk) 21:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Nesnad#gojuuon

Hello,

Yi and wu have never been allowed by Japanese phonotactics, as far back as we can trace the language.

— — kwami (talk) 05:16, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Could you explain the phonotactics? Why were have yi and wu have never been allowed/Why are yi and wu never allowed?68.148.164.166 (talk) 07:00, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

It's very common for languages not to use these combinations of sounds. The y sound is very similar to i, so it's difficult to distinguish them. The same is true for w and u. They're also not found, or at least not distinguished from i and u, in Korean, Mandarin, Spanish, Malay, Portuguese, Swahili, Italian, French, Vietnamese, Arabic, etc. etc. — kwami (talk) 07:33, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your information, but I'm looking for information specfically to Japanese. Is it a specific phonological process, etc.?68.148.164.166 (talk) 23:49, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me for butting in. Morphologically, Japanese undoubtedly did have yi and wu. This is clear in the verbal paradigms. A few examples include:

• oy- "age": oi > *oyi, oi > *oyi, oyu, oyuru, oyure, oi(yo) > *oyi(yo)
• suw- "plant": suwe, suwe, suu > *suwu, suuru > *suwuru, suure > *suwure, suwe(yo)
• uw- "plant": uwe, uwe, uu > *uwu, uuru > *uwuru, uure > *uwure, uwe(yo)
• uw- "starve": uwe, uwe, uu > *uwu, uuru > *uwuru, uure > *uwure, uwe(yo)

However, as far back as we have Japanese texts (c. early 8th century), there is no phonological contrast between /i, yi/ and /u, wu/. You could posit two phonological rules to account for this:

• y -> Ø / _i
• w -> Ø / _u

FYI Bendono (talk) 00:21, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

The palatal lateral fricative

Dear Kwarmi,

As you are the main manager of the IPA article, I report you something that I think it is wrong. In the IPA table, the [ʎ] appears as a palatal lateral approximant. It is not an approximant, but a fricative. It is pronounced the same way as an L, but the difference is in the point of articulation: it is not alveolar but palatal. Also the sample sound recording is wrong in the main article. If you listen to this recording in Old Castilian, you will here this sound: [14] I also commented it in the discussion page of the article. Regards, --Mex^talk 17:35, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Mex. [l] and [ʎ] are both approximants. You're right about the sample, though: that's just [j]. — kwami (talk) 17:44, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I see now. Thanks for the explanation. I can try to cut out a correct sound sample from a Spanish recording if you want. --Mex^talk 18:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

That might be better than a fake sample, as we now have it. You'd probably want to bring it up with the people who are working on that, though, since I think they're trying to keep all the samples parallel ([Xa, aXa] etc.). I haven't done anything with the sound files. — kwami (talk) 18:31, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I looked for it, User:Peter Isotalo made all the recordings. I'll ask him to re-record it then. --Mex^talk 18:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2008_February_28#Yoon

/Cj/ and /Cw/ were, I believe, first found in Chinese loans, and only later spread to native words, rather like /ʒ/ in English. Regardless, they've been around for a millennium. ティ and the like come from English (and perhaps other European languages) and are very recent; there are many people who cannot pronounce them 'correctly'. Orthographically, I don't know if they were ever used other than as yōon, but my guess would be no. However, くわ certainly was.

— kwami (talk) 09:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I am throughly and utterly confused.Asrghasrhiojadrhr (talk) 06:29, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

AFAIK (and I may well be wrong), Japanese is thought to have only had vowel (V) and consonant-vowel (CV) syllables before the influence of Chinese. With Chinese borrowings came new types of syllables, like myo, kwa, and hun (if you want to call the latter a syllable). Much later, under English influence, we get new syllables again, such as ティ. — kwami (talk) 06:42, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

User:Ling.Nut/Funerary art

Hi Kwami,

If you know anyone reliable who could help with the "Africa" section (or any section, actually) of User:Ling.Nut/Funerary art, I'd be deeply in your debt. later! Ling.Nut (talk) 03:10, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't help you there, except maybe to point out the elaborate modern coffins in parts of Ghana. — kwami (talk) 06:07, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks! :-) Ling.Nut (talk) 06:09, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

email

... is served... Ling.Nut (talk) 06:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Sign language#Sign languages

I enjoyed reading your recent contribution to this page, but I'd like to see some references, please. Cbdorsett (talk) 23:38, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I just merged that from a list article. I think I might have written it originally, but a lot of people have added to it since. I'll see what I can dig up, though. — kwami (talk) 23:42, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Palatal lateral approximant (again, corrected)

Hi Kwami. As the user who made the recordings for the sound samples seems to be inactive, I decided to make the correct recording, according to the other samples. I've put the corrected audio link into the article, please check it. I think it won't be bad until that user connects again and makes a better one, what do you think? Regards, --Mex^talk 22:05, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

The laterality of it is much easier to hear in your version, but you didn't make it [lʲ], so I think it's good. — kwami (talk) 22:24, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Free-electron scattering extinction

The idea is as follows:

1. Assume that the Thomson scattering cross section applies for each free electron.
2. Assume that the density of the intergalactic medium is one atom/electron per cubic meter.
3. Assume that the distance traveled by a photon is on the order of 1 billion light years.
4. Multiply the cross section by the distance to obtain the effective volume which is on the order of 0.002 cubic meters. This means 2 photons out of every thousand will be scattered by an electron.
5. Realize that a magnitude difference of 0.25 is associated with 10^0.25/2.5 ratio in flux that corresponds to a difference in flux of about 25%.

And you're done.

ScienceApologist (talk) 08:41, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

By the way, it's okay that you're skeptical. Most astronomers were skeptical the first time they saw the results. Most are now convinced that the results are real and not due to extinction, but not everyone is convinced that dark energy is the only explanation. ScienceApologist (talk) 08:43, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, take the total Thomson cross-section which is 6.652 x 10^-29 square meters. If you assume 10 Glyrs then it is indeed 2%, but notice that the magnitude difference between zero cosmological constant and 0.7 becomes greater too (approaching 1). Another issue is that eventually the nonlinearity of the Hubble Constant due to matter domination becomes too great an effect to see flux decrement at 10 Glyrs. We do, however, see the scattering of light due to free electrons/ions in the optical depth of the CMB due to reionization. ScienceApologist (talk) 10:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The resolution you are looking for is Kruskal-Szekeres coordinates. The problem was that people looking at Schwarzschild coordinates were not taking into account that objects which actually fall into the black hole do not use those coordinates: only people looking at the black hole from afar do. The physical properties of the black hole are determined by the stress-energy tensor associated with it and to find out what that is, you have to change to the new coordinate system. Also note that in Eddington-Finkelstein coordinates you can also resolve the paradox you outlined of the apparent singularity at the event horizon with nothing ever apparently "falling in". ScienceApologist (talk) 15:16, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a somewhat rough estimate, but it's in the right order of magnitude and better constrained than many other measurements. The best constraints are from the WMAP anisotropy data that is directly sensitive to the baryon density in the universe. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

April 1

Arr, matey! Ye have been blocked for an infinite amount of time fer makin' the followin' joke responses to these pages: This is a prank, obviously.

• Pirates
• Ninjas
• Zombies
• Robots
  

Ungggggh....for more information, please see here and donate braaaaainss....
IF YOU WISH TO DISCUSS THIS BLOCK PLEASE DO SO ON THE TALK PAGE. BUT RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. YOU WILL NOT BE UNBLOCKED. THANK YOU.

And you were almost geeky enough to get it at the stroke of midnight my time! — kwami (talk) 09:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

IPA for Azulejo

Hi, is this transcription right for Azulejo? IPA: [aθulexo]

I have zero knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese, so I need your confirm. Thanks in advance.--Appletrees (talk) 17:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much and have happy April! --Appletrees (talk) 17:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Ytpo

"Typo" is so boring. I picked up that habit here, I think it was User:TenOfAllTrades I saw do it first. --Milkbreath (talk) 20:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Nitrogen

With ref to this edit: I had some refinery confined-space training where nitrogen was specifically discussed (remanent purge gas danger). The explanation was that pure nitrogen would flood the CO2 sensor cells (a patch of cells in the chest near the heart?) and disable the breathe-out response, thus obviating the breathe-in response. This was accompanied by a video re-enactment and a trembling-lip statement from the safety officer that he was on shift the day those two guys died. They seemed really really serious about nitrogen. I appreciate that you made a one-off comment on the refdesk, but I'm curious myself - what is the mechanism, and after unconsciousness due to nitrogen inhalation, will the body naturally revive in air atmosphere, or is it game over? Thanks. Franamax (talk) 07:13, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow, I have no idea. I was under the impression you would breath normally (after all, you're still producing CO₂, and so should still feel the need to breathe), but that without inhaling CO₂ you'd have no sensation of suffocation, and so would be oblivious to the danger and simply pass out. I find it a little difficult to believe that N₂ could saturate the CO₂ sensors, since our air is 70% N₂ to begin with, but I'm out of my depth here. — kwami (talk) 07:32, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

My understanding is that you breathe normally and "would be oblivious to the danger and simply pass out" - that's exactly what they were saying. Watch out for that 70%/100% nitrogen reasoning, the liveable limits for oxygen are 19.5 to 21% as far as I know, it's not necessarily some, none or all. I'll try to find some more comment on this - it does interest me. Thanks! Franamax (talk) 10:22, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Most healthy people can get along at 18,000 ft with no exertion (half normal air and thus oxygen pressure), but they need to accomodate. The FAA thinks normal people pass out in 30 min at 18,000 ft (I'm sure that isn't everybody), but they make pilots use O2 at altitudes above 12.5 - 14,000 ft for more than 30 min. And above 14,000 pilots all the time, and passengers above 15,000. [15]. So if we use the 14,000 ft limit (less than Pike's Peak in the US!), that gives us 57% of normal or equivalent of 12% O2. 18,000 ft is 10.4% O2. Somewhere in there is the danger zone for "sudden" unacclimatized hypoxia and loss of ability to think clearly. Of course, people have climbed Everest without O2 at the equivalent of 6.5% O2 or so at sea level-- but that would kill you within minutes if you tried that unadapted.

Now, as for mechanism. CO2 sensors do make you breathe, so you continue to breathe in any non-irritating atmosphere, including inert gas, N2, or hypoxic mixes. Nitrogen doesn't saturate any receptors. Instead, what happens is this: humans don't have very good "low O2" sensors. Unlike burrowing animals and diving animals, we don't sense low O2 very well, directly. Thus, there is very little if no sense of discomfort or warning for atmospheres which are low in O2, but ALSO normally low (or zero) in CO2. That's what happens at sudden high altitude, or in nitrogen. It can also happen in scuba rebreathers when the oxygen isn't flowing-- the CO2 is scrubbed out, but no O2 replaces it, then the O2 level in the mix goes down and down and the diver doesn't notice till they lose consciousness (this is usually fatal, but I've seen one guy survive when it was noticed that he was just floating on the bottom unconcious, and one of his students got him to the surface). This is probably the most common rebreather fatality, and has happened to at least one Nobel Prize winning nuclear physicist! You might have seen Dr. Jonathan Miller actually do this experiment on himself in The Body in Question series in 1978. He lost consciousness without ever feeling short-of-breath. It's what happened to the NASA guys.

Now, what does it look like? Well, the unconscious person continues to breathe for a while before the hypoxia stops even that, so if they are returned to normal O2 within a certain time, they spontaneously wake up. If they quit breathing or go to agonal gasping, they'll need artifical respiration to recover.

If they go to actual cardiac arrest, they'll need full CPR and may or may not spontaneously restart their hearts when oxygenated blood is delivered to the coronaries (this happens more likely with children). Adults often need a heart shock as well, since they'll be in ventricular fibrillation. What the limits to how long this can go on? Once the heart stops it's the standard 4-6 min before permanent brain damage in adults, even with resuscitation. 10 if you're very, very lucky but odds are against you. If you saw resuscitation after drowning scene in The Abyss you get the idea. Post-resusciation treatments like brain-cooling and chemicals show promise, and dogs have been resuscitated to normal after 15 minutes of cardiac arrest. One day people will, too SBHarris 21:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, that's what I suspected. I don't recall for sure what the resuscitation records are in humans, but I believe one was ~ 45 min. for a boy who slipped under the ice. kwami (talk) 22:04, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but that's another category of pre-insult and during-insult hypothermia (brain cools a lot before heart stops, then continues cooling by conduction, especially in kids, during arrest). There's a case in Utah where a 6 year old child fell into an icewater snowmelt brook and was under for over an hour, surviving with minimal brain damage after heart-lung machine resuscitation. But any case with cooling before cardiac arrest is special, and all times change drastically. They can stop the heart for zero blood pressure brain artery surgery for 45 min, after cooling to just 15 C. Dogs have been resuscitated from 4 hours arrest at 1 C (packed in ice). The figures I gave are all for total brain ischemia (no blood pressure) at normal body temp, and the treament referred to is cooling AFTER resusciation (restoration of blood pressure and oxygen), not before. So they're about effects to the brain's responses to the damaging insult by a little bit of post-injury cold (like ice to a sprained ankle or burn), and don't include the much grosser changes that happen to brain metabolism from deep hypothermia applied before and during the insult. SBHarris 03:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course, you're not going to be able to pre-chill someone who chokes during dinner! kwami (talk) 03:27, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Hangul and Phagspa

I understand the Phagspa–Hangul connection is a minority opinion. But I believe displaying full genealogical list of scripts linking from phagspa is more informative to the reader. In order to clarify its disputed status, I have added "(contorversial)" next to phagspa in the genealogical table explaining its status. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Agnistus (talk • contribs) 03:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

That would be my preference too. I'm just think you may have a fight on your hands. kwami (talk) 03:25, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe adding the word "(controversial)" into the table right before phagspa would be more informative that having absolutely no info at all. BTW, I had no option but to be anonymous while using my friend's computer due to the risk of keyloggers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Agnistus (talk • contribs) 17:19, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, no problem with signing in. (Some people abuse it.) I really do think that consensus should be reached here. We can probably come up with something that's acceptable to everyone. Ledyard's a respected scholar, so this isn't some crackpot; I'm not sure "controversial" is the proper word. Maybe just "minority opinion" or something. On the other hand, he doesn't believe the derivation of hangul from 'phagspa is parallel to the derivation of 'phagspa from Tibetan, or Tibetan from brahmi, so a simple table is misleading. He's even gone on record to say that the last thing he wants is for people to interpret his work as simply saying that hangul derives from 'phagspa. kwami (talk) 20:54, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Taoiseach

I have to disagree wholeheartedly. The pronunciation is incorrect as quoted in the OED. The IPA entry on any page should reflect the actual pronunciation and not an erroneous one. I shall start a discussion on it on the page in question. Jamesnp (talk) 10:49, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, but we should have the pronunciation of those who don't speak Irish. kwami (talk) 16:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Ivybridge

Can you check the IPA pronunciation for this article. Note: uses British English. Bsrboy (talk) 12:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Perfect, except for minor formatting. (A cap "I" looks like a small "L" in a lot of fonts, and if you don't specify to the browser that it's IPA, it won't display properly on IE.) kwami (talk) 17:36, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Bsrboy (talk) 19:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Arabic /ɬˤ/

Classical Arabic had */ɬˤ/. This has become /dˤ/ in Standard Arabic (and /zˤ/ in Egyptian Arabic). According to Watson (2002) parts of the Hadramawt of southern Yemen still retain the lateral pronunciation (p 2). She also says that in some southern Yemen dialects, including that of Ghaylħabbān [sic], this lateral pronunciation is preserved, though it becomes [ðˤ] if there is a liquid in the same word (p 16). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:13, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Are those mutually exclusive? I don't know either way. I could speculate that the presence of nearby languages could have prompted the preservation (as is the case with the palatal lateral of South American Spanish dialects in close contact with Quechua). But, of course, this is OR. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:21, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Rongorongo/archive2

Hello. I've restored that page. The FAC was closed here. The bot just does the paperwork. Gimmetrow 06:04, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Just a note about FAC: nominations get closed after a certain period of time when there is still outstanding opposition. This way the FAC list doesn't get too long. My comments, for example, would require a lot of work before I would be willing to strike the oppose. General practice is that when your nomination is closed, finish fixing all of the issues, contact the opposers to have them look at the article again and see if their objections have been met, and then renominate the article. It is preferred that you wait at least one week and probably longer before renominating to be fair to other nominators. Karanacs (talk) 14:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Image:Rongorongo_X_Birdman_(color).jpg listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Rongorongo_X_Birdman_(color).jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media 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. Mangostar (talk) 14:08, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Rongorongo

Hard luck. If you can get people over the barrier of your unusual (for Wikipedia) approach to referencing, I don't see many serious obtacles to success next time. That may or may not be effective consolation! (If you're wondering why I didn't vote support, I don't very often because I feel I shouldn't if I haven't checked out the whole article in detail. Of course I never have the time to do that....) 4u1e (talk) 19:07, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey, no worries, and thanks for sticking up for me when you did. kwami (talk) 19:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry it wasn't more effective! ;-) 4u1e (talk) 20:15, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Generally articles are encouraged to have at least one citation per paragraph. If the whole paragraph comes from a single source, cite it at the end of the paragraph. If several paragraphs in a row come from the same source, it should still appear at the end of every paragraph. That makes it easier for someone to come along later and verify the information (or search out additional information from teh source). Good luck! Karanacs (talk) 20:43, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Stricture Hierarchies?

Back in 2005, in the article for raising you said that laterals and nasals have their own hierarchies. Can you add them to the page? Or provide reference on the page to information on stricture hierarchies? Thank you. Augur (talk) 07:24, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've reworded it so that hopefully it's now clear. I'll try a chart too. kwami (talk) 07:45, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Templates

Please undo your changes to the templates starting with 'IPA', there's no consensus for them. Unlike the format 'pronounced X', the format 'X' doesn't give any indication as to what 'X' is, while the format 'IPA: X' does. There's also the issue of the double brackets in the countless articles that formerly had 'IPA: [X]' enclosed between parentheses. Timeineurope (talk) 17:52, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, easy enough to change, but let's get feedback from other people too. There are also countless articles where the "IPA:" is redundant. kwami (talk) 17:59, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Genre

That genre can be pronounced with both [ʒ] and [dʒ] doesn't mean that the phoneme /ʒ/ can ever be realised as [dʒ]. Some people won't have [ʒ] in certain positions, but that's not because they realise the phoneme /ʒ/ as [dʒ] in such positions – it's because they use the phoneme /dʒ/ instead. While it makes sense to say that German Rat and Rad, both [ˈʁaːt], are /ˈraːt/ and /ˈraːd/, respectively, because other forms of the lexeme Rad, such as Räder, have [d], I don't find that it makes sense to say that journal and genre – when both are pronounced with [dʒ] – have /dʒ/ and /ʒ/, respectively, because there is no word related to genre that has [ʒ]. Timeineurope (talk) 19:02, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Change the wording, then. This is the same issue as with /ʍ/. The point is that if someone who does not have initial /ʒ/ (the vast majority of the monolingual population) looks up "genre" in the IPA key that you keep reverting to, they won't know how to pronounce the word. That takes precedence over any philosophical quibbles you may have. kwami (talk) 19:44, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not the same issue. While /ʍ/ and /w/ are separate phonemes only for some people, /ʒ/ and /dʒ/ are separate phonemes for everyone, and so /ʒ/ can't double for /dʒ/ the way /ʍ/ can double for /w/. The IPA key was fine with beige as an example; you were the one who introduced genre as an example of /ʒ/. Since you have now provided a reference that it is in fact pronounced either with /ʒ/ or with /dʒ/, it was obviously a bad example of a word with /ʒ/ and you should never have substituted it for beige. The several dictionaries I consulted indicated that genre was always pronounced with /ʒ/ and so I had no qualms letting it stay as an example of /ʒ/. If those dictionaries were right, everyone would have initial /ʒ/ and so the problem of someone not having initial /ʒ/ not knowing how to pronounce the word wouldn't arise. As it turns out, genre can be pronounced in two different ways (and I have edited the article Genre accordingly), but get this: genre can be pronounced in two different ways not because /ʒ/ is ever realised as [dʒ], but because genre can be pronounced both with /ʒ/ and with /dʒ/. There's no need for anything taking precedence over something else, as it is perfectly possible to combine the necessary level of accuracy with accommodating those monolingual speakers. As long as the false statement about /ʒ/ ever being pronounced as anything else than [ʒ] is removed, everything's fine. The problem for the monoglots would only be that a word, genre, that's pronounced with /ʒ/ by some and /dʒ/ by others, was falsely said to be pronounced with /ʒ/ by everyone. Again, I only let genre stay as an example of a word pronounced with /ʒ/ because several dictionaries say that's the way it's pronounced. Had I known that it can also be pronounced with /dʒ/, I wouldn't have let it stay as an example of a word with /ʒ/. As for philosophy, that doesn't come into it. This is linguistics, it's a science. Linguistic statements can be right or wrong, and yours was wrong, so it had to be removed. Timeineurope (talk) 02:10, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Some people have initial /ʒ/, most don't. In initial position, it's exactly parallel to /ʍ/, which some people have, and most don't. We need the example, or the chart will be incomplete. kwami (talk) 05:43, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

This dicussion was continued at Help talk:Pronunciation#Genre.

Pronunciation respelling key

I am baffled by your reversion of my edit of this article. The column headings, as you have written them, imply that there exists such a thing as a "Wikipedia IPA" -- and there is no such thing. The current headings also fail to make clear that we are contrasting a respelling transcription with the IPA transcription.

Can we agree that the first column should be headed, perhaps, as "Respelling Symbol" and the second column simply as "IPA Symbol"? It seems to me that that would be simple and clear. Morris K. (talk) 20:14, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the wording you've just suggested is superior. My main motivation was to avoid the impression that this secondary system is how pronunciation needs to be indicated on Wikipedia. (You had labeled a column "Wikipedia Stress Symbol", as if it were the Wikipedia stress symbol.) There are also many different IPA conventions for English; my wording of "Wikipedia IPA" was to clarify that it is the consensus convention for the IPA on Wikipedia. However, with the link we don't need to do that. kwami (talk) 23:47, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Help:IPA -- Kaiserslautern

Kwami, I corrected your example of Kaiserslautern here. The second "er" is actually /er/, so I shortened it to "Kaiser." This caught my eye because I used to live in the town. Funny, huh? Morris K. (talk) 18:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, odd. Okay, I'll un-bold the second syllable. I agree Kaiser's a better example overall, but some editors want examples with sound files whenever possible, which is probably a good idea. kwami (talk) 18:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: Haumea

I'm not sure how I could prove I'm not making it up. I shot him an e-mail about 2005 FY 9 and extrasolar planets in general and he revealed that information to me. -- §HurricaneERICarchive 23:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not the one who reverted you! I even added the info to other articles. But I agree the privacy issues need to be considered. kwami (talk) 23:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

IPA pronunciation of Duquesne

Thanks for working on the correct IPA representation for "Duquesne," especially correcting the syllabic stress. However, I would like to note that in Pittsburgh, the way we pronounce "Duquesne" is closer to /duːˈkeɪn/ than /djuːˈkeɪn/. I believe this is a dialectal difference; should the location of the university have bearing on the way the pronunciation is represented? Alekjds ^talk 04:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

According to the key that transcription links to, /djuː/ is to be pronounced as you'd pronounce the word dew. Since Pittsburghers pronounce dew as [duː], the local pronunciation is automatic. However, people who pronounce dew as [djuː] generally use that pronunciation for Duquesne as well, so this transcription as it is now works for everybody. I'll go ahead and add the comment "(locally [duːˈkeɪn])" for clarity. kwami (talk) 07:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Dubh Artach

Kwami, I'm not sure if the /a/ to /ɑ/ is appropriate here. It's related to the Taoiseach discussion in some ways - Scots (most people from Yorkshire north actually) have /a/, not /ɑ/. Added to that, someone who has /ɑ/ most likely won't have /x/ either and would probably have /k/ or /h/ or something. I think if we are going to keep the /x/ then we need the /a/ too.

I think we need some general rules actually - something along the lines of rules about pronunciation in bilingual English + 1 other language countries (like Wales, Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand...) where place names will involve phonemes not in standard English. Although what they'd exactly look like I'm not sure. For the sake of practicality it might be better to create an infobox for those listing 1) indigenous name and pronunciation 2) local English pronunciation(s) 3) elsewhere.

What do you think? Akerbeltz (talk) 10:44, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Do SSE speakers distinguish mar from marry? If not, then I think we need to look at how the name would be pronounced in London. If it's still ambiguous, then yes, we need to figure something else out.

People who don't have /x/ know they're going to sub /k/, but they will be concerned about which vowel to use. Since SSE only has /a/, it won't matter to them which symbol we use: they'll know they need to collapse the distinction. kwami (talk) 11:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

But why did you choose /ɑː/? Because of your instinct that this is the closest English vowel to [a]? If so, that's an American instinct: there are lots of examples of words where British and American anglicised pronunciations differ in this way (pasta is a well-known example). I (a northern English speaker) would certainly use /æ/ (phonetically [a]) in this name.--JHJ (talk) 07:59, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I was going along with other articles. Both a's, or just the last one? Go ahead and change it to /æ/; you know better than me. kwami (talk) 08:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

They're tricky to keep apart (Scots and SSE I mean) but my impression is that both mar and marry would have /a/ except in those areas where _r is included in the vowel length rule which give you /aː/. And I'm not sure most Scots can read the IPA much less be aware of the fact they need to distinguish/collapse things. Trust me, I've taught IPA to enough Scots to know. I think we should rely as little as possible on people being "aware" of things, since the intention of an encyclopedia is that someone goes and looks something up they're not sure about in the first place. And for that mixing two pronunciation systems isn't a good idea in my view. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Which two systems?

The problem you bring up is the same for all dialects. I don't distinguish half the vowels in the IPA chart, but if since we use sound alikes (/ær/ as in marry, even though I pronounce it [mɛri]), it works the same as a pronunciation respelling. kwami (talk) 12:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

One that mixes a local pronunciation with an over-regional one I guess. Just looked into my Collins, they have /lɒx/ and /lɒk/... I guess there's no ideal answer. Very well, I concede ; ) And I agree, there's some weird vowels listed in some dictionaries, not just in English. I think the problem is that linguist A who likes vowels lists all he can get his hand on, lexicographer A uses the list cause he can't be bothered and lexicographers B-Z23 copy A... Akerbeltz (talk) 14:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The idea so far has been that if the local pronunciation can't be predicted from the transcription, then we give a separate local transcription. In practice, I suppose if it's predictable but drastically different, we should list it separately too. But then there are people who don't feel pronunciations belong in an encyclopedia at all, and having the distraction of multiple alternate pronunciations at the beginning of an article really gets their goat. Keeping it down to a minimum helps out with that, but it's not worth it if we leave our readers in the dark. kwami (talk) 17:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Dr. Seuss

I definitely agree, but Seuss himself pronounced it differently. It would make more sense to have a paragraph discussing the pronunciation—perhaps you could put the IPA pronunciation there? Mr. Absurd (talk) 00:18, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Most Usonians, at least, know the pronunciation, but it's an odd spelling, and I don't know about 2nd-language speakers, so do I think it belongs at the top. His pronunciation of his family name should be at the top too. The details of exactly who, when, and where can be left where they are.

However, although he may have pronounced his family name /zois/, I'd like to know if he did the same with his pen name Dr Seuss. It wouldn't strike me as odd if he used an anglicized pronunciation for that even while keeping the German pronunciation for everyday matters. kwami (talk) 01:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Rwanda

Hello. I can definitely see where you would consider the appearance of a g to be downright baffling and illogical, and this is what I first thought as well. However, check any good Kinyarwanda book (they're hard to come by) and you will see that Kinyarwanda words like 'Rwanda' morph from their actual spellings. (One particulary good book for this is Alexandre Kimenyi's A Relational Grammar of Kinyarwanda.) A few examples:

    rw --> rgw     
    pw --> pk      
    bw --> bg      
    mw --> mŋ      
    my --> mɲ      
    tw --> tkw     
    dw --> dgw     
    cw --> ckw     
    by --> bjy     

I can give real examples of many of these. If you want to hear rgw, listen to BBC Kinyarwanda, available on the BBC website. The speakers repeatedly use the word Rwanda with the rgw sound. It is also notable that there are instances when these morphings are omitted, such as in the singing of Rwanda Nziza, in which I've never heard the g inserted before. If you want to hear tw --> tkw, watch Sometimes in April, a movie about the Rwandan Genocide, and near the vey end of the movie, you will see a gacaca hillside court meeting. The inyangamugayo (gacaca judge) asks if anyone wishes to testify. A woman (one of the main characters walks up and says "Nitwa Martine Kamanzi. [I am named Martine Kamanzi.] I was there. I'm a survivor.". When she says nitwa, it is very obviously pronounced as if it is spelled as nitkwa. As for mw --> mŋ, watch Ghosts of Rwanda or Rwanda : Do Scars Ever Fade ?, and you will see that when the native speakers of Kinyarwanda say Interahamwe, it comes across as Inherahamŋe. One of the most obvious is bw --> bg. Take for example ubwoko, the word for clan or ethnicity. I met Dr Alison des Forges, a Human Rights Watch expert who has worked closely with Rwanda for ages and has travelled to Rwanda some 30 times since the genocide. She pronounced the word as ubgoko. In fact there is even an old dictionary of the neighboring Kirundi language (which shares many of the same phonemes and is similar to Kinyarwanda to the point that BBC and VOA each give the two a joint language channel) which changes the spelling of bw to bg. If you want a link to this dictionary, I can dig it up for you. If you have any more questions or want more supporting evidence please let me know. Thanks for your interest. -74.79.7.214 (talk) 10:33, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

The r in rw is a flap. Honestly, I don't know the difference between [ɾw] and [ɾʷ]; I had always assumed they were the same. Could you clear up that difference for me ? As for your other question, no I have never heard these combinations as coarticulations in Kinyarwanda, but as sequences. Now that I think of it, I had read somewhere of a similar phenomenon in chiShona in Zimbabwe. I vividly remember reading that the pw in chiShona could be pronounced as pk just like in Kinyarwanda. I shall see if I can dig up the book I found that in. You're right, this should definitely go in the Kinyarwanda article. If I have time in the next few weeks, I may do a major renovation of the Kinyarwanda page, as I know a lot of it now. Let me know if you have anymore questions. It's nice to see interest in this sort of thing. -74.79.7.214 (talk) 22:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for clarifying that. Yes it's definitely a sequence, not simultaneous articulation. -74.79.7.214 (talk) 13:58, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm totally certain that the r in rw is a non-syllabic flap. -74.79.7.214 (talk) 21:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

That is correct, it is a nonsyllabic flap in both pronunciations. -74.79.7.214 (talk) 22:24, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

IPA wikitable

Hi, you added IPA template calls to the tables in the IPA article: diff. However, IPA characters show up fine in MSIE6 without adding individual templates, because all relevant tables had class="IPA wikitable" set on them, influencing all the cells. Is there something I'm missing? Cheers, --Kjoonlee 20:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

class="IPA wikitable" doesn't work in Firefox, or at least it doesn't match {{IPA}}. I've brought that up for discussion a couple times, but no-one responded, so I just started doing it manually. kwami (talk) 20:52, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand. The IPA class is recognized by all versions of Firefox which I have used, which include Firefox2 and Firefox3 (alphas and betas) and the nightly builds. I can style the cells as I wish from my own user styles at Wikipedia. If you mean the fonts at {{IPA}}, the fonts are meant to work for MSIE only. --Kjoonlee 21:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah I see. You've got "span.IPA" in your stylesheets while I have ".IPA" only. Maybe you'd want to switch to .IPA..? --Kjoonlee 21:11, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Is that all it took? Silly me. kwami (talk) 00:29, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Nope, doesn't work. It still displays in Arial. kwami (talk) 08:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Clear your cache, please. ;) --Kjoonlee 08:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

That's not it. I tested it with two new tables, one as class="IPA wikitable" and one as class="wikitable", so there was nothing in the cache. They displayed identically. Do these look any different to you?

Wikitable

ɡ ʁ ɳ ɮ

IPA Wikitable

ɡ ʁ ɳ ɮ

Wikitable with IPA template

ɡ ʁ ɳ ɮ

Only the last one displays properly for me, and I currently have my CSS keyed to .IPA. kwami (talk) 08:26, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

You might want to try refreshing this link and checking if it shows an old cache. --Kjoonlee 08:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

That was it. Thanks! kwami (talk) 08:39, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Lao

If such is the case, why is China's article titled People's Republic of China? Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 14:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Because there are two nations named "China". Cf. France, Russia, Mexico ... kwami (talk) 00:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Non-existent speaker icon

Kwami, What are you doing? There is NO speaker icon anywhere in the Help:IPA article. At least not on my browser, which is IE7. Do you have a magic browser which translates a superscript (i) into a tiny picture of an speaker?? Morris K. (talk) 03:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The speaker icon shows up for me, and everyone else so far, on both IE and FF. The (i) doesn't play the sound but instead takes you to the page with the sound file, so you can access the file info. (Several people have removed the (i) links as an annoyance, but evidently they're required by wikipedia policy.) I don't know why you're not seeing the speakers. kwami (talk) 05:12, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Esperanto diphthongs

I noticed in this edit that you undid my change in the representation of diphthongs. We can both make a case for our respective choices but I'm wondering how the literature generally represents them phonemically. The only thing I could find is this which doesn't really use IPA but chooses to represent non-vocalic /u/ and /i/ as <ŭ> and <j> respectively. What is your experience on the matter? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:55, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

There's a lot of confusion about the existence of a /w/ in Esperanto, so I prefer to avoid the transcriptions <aw> and <ew>. The <w> there is not a consonant, which is what it represents in the IPA. Also, Kalocsay and Waringhien say that the letter <j> represents two phonemes, and that if Esperanto orthography were consistent, the diphthongs would be written <aĭ> and <oĭ> rather than <aj> and <oj>. There's a discussion in the Talk page of one of the articles. kwami (talk) 07:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

From your description, I'm not sure how detailed Kalocsay and Waringhien get. Do they use IPA? My concern here is that we're needlessly using the semivowel diacritic between phonemic slashes, especially since Esperanto has phonetic variation depending on speaker. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:21, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

/ai̯/ is clearly distinct from /ai/: Any word ending in /ai/, such as balai, will take stress on the <a>. A word ending in /ai̯/, such as balaj, will not. K&W did not use the IPA, but their meaning was clear: The letter <j> represents two sounds, consonantal and vocalic. <ŭ> only has the latter use, except in mimesis and proper names, and even in the latter it becomes /v/ when they are fully assimilated. When you start using <w>, people want to add it to the consonant inventory, creating a contrast between /v/ and /w/. kwami (talk) 15:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

r in parentheses

You agreed back in October that transcriptions like /ˈhɑː(r)wʊd/ can be used in articles (see Help talk:Pronunciation/Archive 1#Rhotic vowel formatting), so you have no basis for undoing such transcriptions. Timeineurope (talk) 17:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Bring it up at MoS. kwami (talk) 18:12, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

No need for that, the consensus already exists. Timeineurope (talk) 18:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

You equate my comment, that such a transcription would be understood, with consensus? kwami (talk) 18:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

No, I equate the half-year absence of disagreement with your comment that such transcriptions are OK (not would be understood) with consensus. Timeineurope (talk) 19:04, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

American Heritage Dictionary on Halley

This dictionary confusingly uses ā for both /æ/ and /eɪ/. The sound clip resolves the ambiguity of the transcription. Timeineurope (talk) 21:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for such a nice response! Yes, it looks like ā is substituted for ă throughout. I'll ref with Webster's. kwami (talk) 22:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

(Halley's pronunciation of his own name is at the top of the article, of course, but I've never heard it used for the comet, and Webster's doesn't list it as an alternate. When the comet came around last time, most Usonians pronounced it with an /eɪ/, though there was a movement to "correct" it to /æ/.) kwami (talk) 22:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

We're not bound by Webster's. Some people do pronounce it as /ˈhɔːlɪ/. Timeineurope (talk) 22:20, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

No, of course we're not bound by any one dictionary. I've checked three, and have three cases of /æ/ and one of /eɪ/. I've yet to come across /ɔː/. kwami (talk) 22:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The Duden-Aussprachewörterbuch has it as a possible English pronunciation of Halley. Timeineurope (talk) 22:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Revised mass of 511 Davida

Thank you for your excellent work on the article 511 Davida. You recently brought the mass of 511 Davida into conformity with the observed size based on an "assumed density" of 2.0 g/cm³, but provided no source to explain the assumption about the density, so it's not clear why you changed the mass to conform to the listed density instead of changing the density to conform to the listed mass. Astronomy & Astrophysics 374, 703-711 (2001) indicates the mass of 511 Davida as 3.34 × 10^-11 solar masses, much higher than the mass you have indicated. Could you give us some further pointers? --arkuat (talk) 20:06, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I was working on the assumption that the mass was estimated from the size and assumed density, based on phone conversations I had with Conrad and other people cited in the references. Sorry, I'm out of town and don't have access to my notes. If the mass has been reliably estimated independently, then of course we should recalculate the density based on that. I'll go ahead and make the change. kwami (talk) 22:01, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow, beautiful. Thank you very much! I haven't delved into the methodology behind that Astronomy & Astrophysics article or anything, but it's more of a citation than we have for the density estimate. --arkuat (talk) 05:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

South Caucasian / Kartvelian

I see your point, but I don't agree. On that particular page were listed only the families, not the genera or any subfamilies, so confusion should not occure. I have experienced that "Kartvelian" is rather rare in contemporary literature. It seems to me that it was used more often in the past in old German and English books and articles. Furthermore, you didn't (and for the same reason shouldn't) replace Northeast Caucasian and Northwest Caucasian by "Nakh-Dagestanian" (although this term is still in use today) and "Abkhaz-Adyghe" or "Pontic" (never seen any of them in use nowadays), respectively. So I don't think there's any striking reason to rename the links or even the article. — N-true (talk) 11:43, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Presumably because Pontic to European linguists means Pontic Greek, no? Akerbeltz (talk) 12:21, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Canadian Aboriginal syllabics

Hello! I understand you undid my edits (Brahmi introduction into subj article) for a good reason. Yet, there is something I would like to know. From the article it is not evident that Evans' knowledge of Devanagari is documented, and not his knowledge of related scripts. I would be glad if you add a reference to devanagari version. At the moment, "triangles for vowels" as an invention of Evans in the article text looks no less strange than the proposal that it was taken from Brahmi. Tar-ba-gan (talk) 21:37, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm out of town and can't help you with the refs. I don't see much resemblance to Brahmi, unless the vowels were all taken from /e/, and in any case, once you start allowing comparisons to multiple scripts, you can prove just about anything. If you don't like the speculation about the vowels being invented, feel free to delete it. kwami (talk) 05:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I can only find refs to his knowledge of non-Roman shorthand and Devanagari. kwami (talk) 20:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I guess this will do. You did wonderful job creating the article. It eventually got translated into Russian and there, I introduced the Brahmi idea (and naturally as you were not there, noone could revert that coz with no refs Brahmi connection is just as encyclopedic as the rest of the article!) Now I need to correct myself. I need ref for Russian wiki exactly, to state ref to Devanagari (and probably leave one mention of Brahmi, as a proposal only). Tar-ba-gan (talk) 15:37, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

If we're going to speculate, both Nagari e and Latin A are possibilities. Just as likely is that this was a blank in Nagari, which has no generic vowel letter, and just as Sejong created a vowel-initial letter from a circle, since Phagspa didn't provide one, Evans may have used the triangle as the most symmetrical rotatable shape. I'm sure we could think of other possibilities. What makes the other letters convincing is the regularity of multiple correspondences. kwami (talk) 18:04, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

re: Hunmin Jeongeum and Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye

Hi, I think things are moving in the right direction. Thank you.

However, there's still a bit of a problem with the images. (There had been some mention of the Hunmin Jeongeum images, at either Wikiproject Korea or the Korean Wikipedia itself.) The Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye image is fine now, but the Hunmin Jeongeum image needs to be switched to something which is written in Classical Chinese.

Since the latter image has descriptions in Old Hangul, it belongs to the Hunmin Jeongeum Eonhaebon manuscript. (I don't know whether the Eonhaebon manuscript is an edition of the Haerye or not. Sorry...) --Kjoonlee 22:35, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

There's only the one copy of the Haerye. kwami (talk) 23:00, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes... it looks like the Haerye is the de facto original copy of the Hunmin Jeongeum at the moment so it would be better to use the beginning of the Haerye at the Hunmin Jeongeum page IMHO, instead of the Eonhae image. --Kjoonlee 23:18, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Why do you say it's not just another copy? Also, do we have an image of the Hunmin Jeongeum from the Haerye? kwami (talk) 00:07, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I got the impression that Korea's national treasure no. 70, the Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye at the Kansong Museum, is the only extant copy of the full version of Hunmin Jeongeum without Hangul annotations. According to ko:훈민정음, the "Haerye book" has Sejong's foreword, a Ye-eui part, a Haerye part, and Jeong Inji's Seo (序). The Eonhaebon is only Sejong's foreword and the Ye-eui part. Now, I have no idea whether the Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye image deals with the Ye-eui part or the Haerye part. --Kjoonlee 03:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

If the ye-eui is the copy of the hunmin jeong-eum (I've never heard the term), then the image is from the haerye part. The hunmin jeong-eum had long been known; what made the haerye famous was that for the first time it explained the design of the letters in terms of articulatory phonetics, which is exactly what these pages do: "gieuk is the outline of the root of the tongue blocking the throat," etc. It makes sense that the museum display would be open to the most important page of the book, not to a copy of a known document which is not considered a national treasure. kwami (talk) 03:36, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

In any case, although the Eonhae image may not be the best for the Hunmin jeong-eum, it's a better illustration for the hangul article. kwami (talk) 04:15, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization

Hi, Kwamikagami;

Thanks for your contributions to the Sei Whale article. Unfortunately, what you're doing seems logical, to change the name of whales to sentence case, but the issue has been long debated at WikiProject Cetaceans and the standard that has been adopted is to capitalize the common names of whales. It's not a standard that I agree with, but I'd like to ask that you revert your recent capitalization changes and begin a discussion over on that project's talk page before doing any more. I'll support you in your quest to change the standard, but as I understand it, it was a long and acrimonious debate in the past that led to this standard. If you have any questions, please reply here or on my talk page. Thanks, Neil916 (Talk) 06:44, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

PS: You can see that I initiated a disussion that is currently at the top (oldest) part of the WikiProject Cetations talk page some time ago, and received pointers to where those dissusions and standards were. The rest of the discussion is buried in the archives. Neil916 (Talk) 06:47, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, done. We have so much capitalization is some of these articles that they look almost German. kwami (talk) 06:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Apparently, several have tried and failed to generate consensus to revise that standard. Can you also undo your page moves to the uncapitalized versions of the articles? Thanks. Neil916 (Talk) 06:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Already done. kwami (talk) 06:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Not yet. When I go to Sei Whale, it redirects to Sei whale. Neil916 (Talk) 07:00, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry. I didn't notice it hadn't taken. kwami (talk) 07:04, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Sorry about the hassle, hopefully I noticed before you invested too much time in making those changes to a bunch of whale articles. Still looks like a fair amount of lost effort to make the changes to two articles. Thanks again. Neil916 (Talk) 07:07, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Sneaking in here...are you talking about capitalization of the title only, or within the article as well? I have been creating lots of articles and using sentence case for both the title and the article text. Bob the Wikipedian (talk) 12:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Bob, I've replied on your talk page so Kwami's page doesn't get too cluttered. Neil916 (Talk) 15:39, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the cetacean capitalization convention should be changed. Sentence case is general Wikipedia policy, and matches the usage in the scientific literature. Rracecarr (talk) 16:22, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Add you comments after mine, and maybe we can get this re-opened. kwami (talk) 19:49, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Vinča signs

When I reverted the spelling change, I explained in the edit summary that 'artefact' was correct - the editor who had changed the spelling gave no reason in the edit summary. I'm sure you know as well as I do that guidelines say fill out edit summaries, so why did you revert my rv? --Doug Weller (talk) 08:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

He corrected the link, not the spelling. kwami (talk) 08:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I clearly need to clean my glasses. But it is an example of why edit summaries are so useful (not that I never forget to add one). Doug Weller (talk) 09:25, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I have gotten really really bad with summaries. Sorry. kwami (talk) 10:04, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Hadza Language

What was wrong with the consonant chart how I put it? Munci (talk) 11:13, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The clicks were wrong: there are no velar clicks, etc. kwami (talk) 11:45, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Now I see it. I accidentally changed the clicks section when I was trying to changed it so that affricates would be separate from the plosives. I have tried to change so I'd sort the clicks as well but the current table doesn't seem to make sense with the clicks because | is used for dental clicks and ! for alveolar yet in the table it uses | for sibilant and ! for non-sibilant. Munci (talk) 12:32, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't object to the change, but I didn't have time to correct it. kwami (talk) 18:19, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I made it so the clicks are in a separate table. Is this fine? Munci (talk) 03:47, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

That suggests there's something different about them that requires their separation. They're just ordinary consonants. Most people think there's something odd about clicks, and this just reinforces that perception, as if there were three types of speech sound, consonant, vowel, and click. Sorry to keep reverting you, but I feel strongly that exotic languages shouldn't be presented in such a way that makes them look unnecessarily bizarre, while more familiar languages are presented as normal. kwami (talk) 05:16, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I've never noticed this perception. I thought they were just seen as weird consonants. How about having ejectives separate as well and have thelast as pulmonic since all 3 are different sorts of airstream? Or should it just be figured out to keep all the consonants together?

I'd keep all C's together. Separating them does not reflect the behavior of the language the way that separating C's and vowels does. And in the Hadza language, they are not weird consonants. The outside perception that they are odd can be seen in the very IPA symbols they are written with: a pipe. Every one of Hadza's twelve clicks is written with a variation of that same symbol, as if they were all basically the same thing. Also, /k'/ varies between being a plosive and an affricate. kwami (talk) 09:56, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I only meant about outside perceptions. I did the table again with all the consonants in and footnotes for allophones, variations and rare phonemes. Munci (talk) 11:21, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

You state that the pulmonic consonants vary between dental and alveolar. They aren't: they're simply alveolar. kwami (talk) 18:27, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

So why did it say Dental/Alveolar in the original version? Are you happy now? Munci (talk) 03:29, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

It just didn't distinguish them, just as you haven't bothered to distinguish postalveolar from palatal. Okay, but I'll add the nasals in with the other stops. kwami (talk) 05:09, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Volapük

Hi, would you be able to direct me to the relevant part of MoS please? Thanks. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 12:01, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation)#Foreign names. I usually don't worry much about the order, but Volapuk has an English pronunciation, so it should be included. Besides, why remove information from an encyclopedia? kwami (talk) 12:37, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

We are not an indiscriminate collection of information, and are we sure that's the ubiquitous English pronunciation? Do we know if any other dictionaries use it other than the Oxford one? Not attacking or anything, just want to discuss. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 06:16, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, of course all sorts of dictionaries could have all sorts of fanciful pronunciations, but the OED is researched. Random House and American Heritage (the latter not a very good dictionary) also have /voʊl-/ as an alt. kwami (talk) 06:21, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I was just trying to establish whether it was an English word or a foreign word. Looks like the former, so I agree with keeping it there. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 10:13, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

It's both. Often the dieresis will be left out in English. kwami (talk) 10:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

zanzibar

Whether it goes without saying or not, it is wrong. Pemba is part of the Zanzibar archipelago, so to say Zanzibar and Pemba, would be wrong. please see the wikipedia entry on Zanzibar, for clarification:

Zanzibar IPA: /ˈzænzɨbɑːr/ forms part of the East African nation of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean 25–50 km (15–30 mi) off the coast, consisting of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja (the main island, sometimes informally referred to as "Zanzibar"), and Pemba. Zanzibar was once a separate state with a long trading history within the Arab world; it united with Tanganyika to form Tanzania, and still enjoys a high degree of autonomy within the union. The capital of Zanzibar, located on the island of Unguja, is Zanzibar City, and its old quarter, known as Stone Town, is a World Heritage Site.