User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 6

Barnstars I, Ling.Nut award this very overdue Linguist's barnstar to Kwamikagami. Thanks for making the Internet not suck. Thanks for taking an interest in the language families of South America - they really need a hand! ·Maunus·ƛ· 08:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC) I, Ikiroid, award this Barnstar to Kwami for helping me with effectively editing language pages. The Barnstar of Diligence I, Agnistus award this Barnstar to Kwami for his invaluable contributions to the Origin of hangul article. The Anti-Flame Barnstar I think you deserve a golden fire extinguisher for helping me deal with that misguided revolutionary Serendipodous 10:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC) The Graphic Designer's Barnstar For your wonderful moon mass charts, I offer the Graphic designer's barnstar. Serendipodous 12:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC) The Original Barnstar For transforming Rongorongo from a sketchy, unhelpful mess into a tightly organized family of articles covering the entire Rongorongo corpus in a manner both scholarly and accessible, I award you this Barnstar. May it bring you much mana! Fishal (talk) 02:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC) The Working Man's Barnstar For getting all the EL61 links changed to Haumea (dwarf planet), I think you deserve the working man's barnstar. Must have been tedious as heck. Serendipodous 09:40, 19 September 2008 (UTC) The Original Barnstar Presented for your creation of the Malagasy IPA pages and your tireless transcription efforts. Thank you! Lemurbaby (talk) 11:44, 19 November 2010 (UTC) The Graphic Designer's Barnstar For your contributions to File:IPA chart 2005.png (better seen in the English Wikipedia logs since the move to Commons). In taking linguistics courses as an undergraduate, having a printout-size and easy-to-find IPA reference was indispensable. I will probably be finding printouts of this file mixed in with my college papers for decades to come; that's just how often I used it. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 22:31, 7 December 2010 (UTC) The Tireless Contributor Barnstar I, Stevey7788, hereby present you the Tireless Contributor Barnstar for your tremendously prolific work on languages and linguistics. Excellent articles, wonderful images, and impressive contributions overall! — Stevey7788 (talk) 23:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC) The Editor's Barnstar For your continued good work in articles on languages. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 00:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC) The Teamwork Barnstar I hope the script story will have a happy end :-) Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 21:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC) The Original Barnstar Hi there, I noticed that you edited an article that I created (Chay Shegog) and edited the pronunciation. I am a Shegog myself. I'm not bothered about your change at all. The emphasis is how you wrote it so shi-GOG. I noticed that you have done some stuff related to American Indians on Wikipedia. Are you of Native American descent? I've done some research and there is some evidence to suggest that the name Shegog is taken from zhigaag (so like Chicago with two g's and no 'o') which means skunk in the Ojibwe language. But all Shegog's I know pronounce it with a short -og similar to dog. Thanks, Shegan AGirl1191 (talk) 04:16, 6 March 2012 (UTC) The Tireless Contributor Barnstar Thanks for your recent run of newly-created language articles, and for your efforts to improve the encyclopedia. Northamerica1000(talk) 17:28, 17 March 2012 (UTC) The Original Barnstar thank for contributing us... Liansanga (talk) 00:23, 8 June 2012 (UTC) The Admin's Barnstar For your past excellent service as Administrator, and a sad reminder that sometimes ARBCOM can blow it - big time. HammerFilmFan (talk) 01:33, 6 October 2012 (UTC) Guardian of Hamari Boli Most sincere gratitude for your invaluable contributions to Hindi-Urdu related articles on English Wikipedia. Forever indebted to you -and wikipedia of course- for telling it like it is.. Amazing how you never gave up and went thru all the troubles dealing with zealots. Bravo! You're one of the inspirations that led to the genesis of http://www.HamariBoli.com edge.walker (talk) 22:01, 11 August 2012 (UTC) The Instructor's Barnstar This Barnstar is awarded to Wikipedians who have performed stellar work in the area of instruction & help for other editors. For your contributions to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style and especially for your contributions to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting. Moreover, in providing examples of how to implemented the Manual in text editing and your great cooperation with me! Magioladitis (talk) 22:54, 9 November 2012 (UTC) The Resilient Barnstar For your WP rules following Saraikistan (talk) 18:41, 4 January 2013 (UTC) The Barnstar of Diligence For your linguistic contributions. We will carry on this professional discussion later because I will be off now. Regards Maria0333 (talk) 07:59, 7 February 2013 (UTC) The Original Barnstar For all-round good work, but especially this edit. Keep it up! Green Giant (talk) 09:12, 8 January 2014 (UTC) All Around Amazing Barnstar Dear Kwamikagami, thank you for all of your amazing contributions to language related articles. Your contributions are making a difference here on Wikipedia! Keep up the good work! With regards, AnupamTalk 21:25, 9 April 2014 (UTC) The LGBT Barnstar For your work over at Public opinion of same-sex marriage in the United States, the article looks vastly improved and I am happy to see there was an agreement made on the results. =) Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:46, 25 April 2014 (UTC) The Brilliant Idea Barnstar Good job Sit1101 (talk) 01:53, 30 December 2014 (UTC) The Multiple Barnstar These are just some barnstars for some of the many amazing things you do here on Wikipedia, I don't know what this site would do without you. Abrahamic Faiths (talk) 21:06, 27 April 2015 (UTC) The Original Barnstar For working to help close RfCs and reduce the backlog. Wugapodes (talk) 00:54, 5 August 2015 (UTC) The Tireless Contributor Barnstar For great, expeditious and lynx-eyed reviewing and correction of all Aboriginal articles,Nishidani (talk) 16:37, 14 February 2019 (UTC) The Papua New Guinean Barnstar of National Merit Thank you for your many years of tireless work on articles of Papuan languages! Here's something to add to your long list of barnstars. (Although admittedly, this is just for "East New Guinea Highlands languages" and other Papuan languages on the eastern half of the island.) — Sagotreespirit (talk) 09:56, 20 April 2020 (UTC) The Original Barnstar Because you do an incredible amount of good work, and I am more or less in awe at how much you know. Also, I think you do not have enough barnstars. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 05:06, 22 August 2020 (UTC) The Special Barnstar For creating the Tyap language article. Thanks! Kambai Akau (talk) 20:22, 14 September 2020 (UTC) The Mathematics Barnstar For getting Kaktovik numerals to good article status. Thank you Akrasia25 (talk) 18:22, 6 March 2021 (UTC) The Reviewers Award By the authority vested in me by myself it gives me great pleasure to present you with this award in recognition of the thorough, detailed and actionable reviews you have carried out at FAC. This work is very much appreciated. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:33, 18 September 2021 (UTC) The Editor's Barnstar Thanks for your tireless editing and ability to recognize the nuance most miss, do not understand, or fail to research regarding parliamentary law vis-à-vis a supreme court’s jurisdiction specially regarding Nepal Quaerens-veritatem (talk) 06:10, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
The colubrid Telescopus semiannulatus in an acacia, central Tanzania.		This user is one of the 40 most active English Wikipedians of all time. This user is a former administrator on the English Wikipedia (verify). Quotes: Only an evil person would eat baby soup. To shew that there is no tautology, no vain repetition of one and the same thing therein. In this country we treat our broads with respect. Words of the day: anti-zombie-fungus fungus

Decipherment of Rongorongo FA discussion

Being basically unfamiliar with the FA process, I'm not going to comment on the review. But I will say that I'm a great fan of your work, in particular in turning Rongorongo from a sketchy, unhelpful mess into a tightly organized family of articles covering the entire Rongorongo corpus in a manner both scholarly and accessible. Say, that would sound good on a barnstar.

		The Original Barnstar
		For transforming Rongorongo from a sketchy, unhelpful mess into a tightly organized family of articles covering the entire Rongorongo corpus in a manner both scholarly and accessible, I award you this Barnstar. May it bring you much mana! Fishal (talk) 02:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

*Groan*—pun painful. But thanks. I'm glad someone's reading them! kwami (talk) 02:34, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

We got there! Maybe your barnstar worked! kwami (talk) 19:56, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again.

I really appreciate your help and time on the Romanization. Whenever I have a problem on linguistic, I've got your help. Keep up the good work!! Best.--Caspian blue (talk) 02:37, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Glad I could help. kwami (talk) 07:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

First steps in Hadza language

Dear Kwamikagami,

Thank You for improving and correcting my last contributions.

I tried to make the first steps in learning Hadza language. I have found some special papers and other materials, all discussing a specific aspect. (It was a pleasant surprise that the the exclamations of the Hadza about a recently killed kudu on the Italian video could be recognized clearly after having read these papers.) Despite of the extreme value of these materials, their topic is very special. How have You done the first steps? I could not find any good introductory materiasl. I even looked for not-online materials (books, journal articles, catalogues, bibliographies), but still, I have not found any yet.

Or, if no introductory materials exist, are there at least some raw texts in Hadza, enabling learning by induction on a sufficient corpus? Are there any (continuous) raw texts at all, or, at least, whole sentences?

For contrast: I began to learn two Eskimo languages since the end of the 1990s: Sireniki Eskimo language and the Ungazigmi variant of Siberian Yupik languages. Since then, Sireniki went extinct, and the death of Ungazigmi is approaching too (no youth knowlege among youth, failed plans in school education). Despite of that, the written material about Siberian Yupik languages and cultures are A B U N D A N T, and also Sireniki materials are enough for a good start.

But the state of Hadza is not exactly like these extinct/endangered Siberian Eskimo languages. Hadza is a living language, with vigorous knowledge even among youth! And they seem to be actively studied (ecological, anthropological, phonetical studies, videos, even turistical visits). The seeming lack of available corpus and comprehensive linguistical materials seems form me very surprising.

Thus, how could You make the first steps in Hadza language? I tried to take them on my own, but I cannot find out the way now.

Best wishes, and thanks for the attention,

Physis (talk) 20:03, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Dear Kwamikagami,

Thank You very much for Your help.

I am glad to hear that the availability of Hadzabe linguistical materials can improve in the next few years.

Till then, maybe I can ask for a copy of Berger 1943 from a German library. It had to be searched by series + journal (omitting title!) in the German bookfinder GVK. Wikipedia's Book sources was a great help in finding that.

Best wishes,

Physis (talk) 22:02, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Eris/Makemake resonances

We're going to need more authoritative sources that that hobby page if we're going to include them. Serendi^podous 09:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, but we already know Brown accepts this. We should be able to dig something up. kwami (talk) 11:08, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I've had a quick look through Google scholar and haven't found anything yet. Serendi^podous

I'll remove the "few more years" wording as OR. However, I think this is one of those cases where an otherwise unacceptable source may be considered reliable—the expert in the field accepts it, but it's still too tentative to publish. kwami (talk) 18:51, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

ㄧ 一

which one is the correct one for zhuyin? ㄧ 一 and why are there two variants?ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 21:19, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

ㄧ is used when you're writing horizontally, and 一 when you're writing vertically. The idea is for the letters to kern better, just like the hangul vowels with the same shapes. kwami (talk) 21:23, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

re: IPA notice

Hi, there used to be a chart at IPA chart for Macedonian but now it's just a redirect. Thanks for the notice, though. :) --Kjoonlee 23:31, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Wow

I love how you've really cleaned up List of English words without rhymes, thanks for the help! (I know, I did a pretty pathetic job, but I don't come here often anyways). Teh Rote (talk) 01:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I second the appreciation! It has been getting gradually better for a while, but this is a big leap forward. maxsch (talk) 13:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. If anyone can track down that list of 55 alleged monosyllabic refractory rhymes, that would be a nice contribution. I'll verify w OED2, and you can verify with whatever you have available. kwami (talk) 19:35, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Expert attention required

[1], [2]. OpalNet IP's as before (User_talk:Black_Kite/Archive_17#Malta/OpalNet_user) Any offers? Knepflerle (talk) 19:46, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Blocked the socks and copy edited the article. Angr's right: I can see Arabic al- having its own article, as it's found in English, but il should be merged with Maltese language, which doesn't even mention the definite article. kwami (talk) 20:33, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the swift action. I've got no particular interest in this article, and agree it could be well dealt with in the Maltese language article or some such. But my biggest concern is the multi-sock offense that is going on over dozens of articles connected to Malta, Sicily and the Sicani. I've fixed the link above - if all that info is correct this is an issue that needs a thorough, concerted investigation and action (including an dnot restricted to checkuser etc) - the high-traffic articles are being corrected, but the insidious introduction of disinformation into low-traffic articles is an attack on the project's integrity. I only spotted this instance because I chased up the contributions of another suspicious edit, I hate to think what other damage has been done.

Apologies for bothering you; it's so frustrating to be personally unable to do much against this sort of edits. Thanks again, best wishes, Knepflerle (talk) 21:18, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

You need to take this to the admin board. Hopefully there's something they can do. kwami (talk) 21:20, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Tried AN/I here [3], no response. Contacted the checkuser who last dealt with the case, no response [4]. Asked last blocking admin [5], [6]... well, you guessed it. In fact, the guy who first introduced that "fact" into Il- has already(!) been identified as a likely member of the sockfarm [7] but nothing was followed up at all. Noone can say I didn't try though ;) Will try and file something again at some point but my editing time will be a lot more restricted for a while. Knepflerle (talk) 21:45, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

(And a bonus prize if you can work out if/how this edit and these contribs fit into it all.) Knepflerle (talk) 21:54, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Seen it. If Wikipedia isn't going to be serious about protecting itself from vandals, I am not going to waste my time with it. I'll continue to protect the articles I'm involved with or egregious conduct I happen to come across. kwami (talk) 22:14, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

For your level-headed and informative suggestions/comments. Much appreciated. the roof of this court is too high to be yours (talk) 00:16, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Bimorphemic logograms

Can you comment on the logogram talk page why you restored the part that I took out on bimorphemic logograms? I explained there why I thought it should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.114.75.233 (talk) 23:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

You removed it with the comment that it's nonsensical, but it makes perfect sense. Morphemes have nothing to do with syllables, so if Chinese characters adhere to syllabicity over morphology, then they're not strictly logographic. There are also couple bimorphemic and bisyllabic characters in modern Chinese, such as 卅 sānshi and 卌 sìshi. (Yes, I know they also stand for monosyllables, but they're used for both.) kwami (talk) 23:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

First, morphemes surely have to do with syllables because I don't know how you can identify what is and is not a morpheme unless you can point to its pronunciation and show that it can occur elsewhere. A monosyllabic but bimorphemic example would take some justification. Maybe not impossible, but one would have to say a few words about it. The example with 王 is not well articulated on the page. Was 王 in Archaic Chinese actually pronounced as hjwang-s? That wasn't clear, especially because it would be a case of a bisyllabic character, which is itself quite rare and something I didn't even believe was possible. Also talking about the present-day lexical ambiguity of 王 (king vs rule) is confusing because those are not the two morphemes involved in its past bimorphemic-ness; rather, it's the morphemes king+suffix. You should also note there your examples of 卅 and 卌 as examples of bisyllabic logograms in *modern Chinese*, to support the fact that 王 could have been bisyllabic in Archaic Chinese, since 王 is not itself bisyllabic or bimorphemic in modern Chinese. Is it possible to use 卌 in a sentence, by the way? --130.91.109.98 (talk) 17:45, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't follow you at all. *hjwang-s was monosyllabic and bimorphemic; that's the whole point. kwami (talk) 19:43, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh shoot. Obviously. So, right, I am not paying attention. (I was stuck on modern Mandarin's syllable structure --- you couldn't, as far as I understand, have that -s in the same syllable as the rest, and there's not much room to decompose a Mandarin syllable into morphemes.) Nevertheless, whether something is confusing is in the eye of the beholder, right? Let me suggest the following re-write of that paragraph: "None of these systems was purely logographic. This can be illustrated with Chinese. Not all Chinese characters represent morphemes: some morphemes are composed of more than one character. For example, the Chinese word for spider, 蜘蛛 zhīzhū, was creating by fusing the rebus 知朱 zhīzhū (literally "know cinnabar") with the 'bug' determinative 虫. Neither *蜘 zhī nor *蛛 zhū occur separately (except to stand in for 蜘蛛 in poetry). In Archaic Chinese, one can find the reverse: a single character representing more than one morpheme. An example is Archaic Chinese 王 hjwangs, a combination of a morpheme 'hjwang' meaning king (coincidentally also written 王) and a suffix pronounced 's'. (The suffix is preserved in the modern falling tone.) In modern Mandarin, bimorphemic syllables are always written with two characters, for example 花儿 huār "flower (diminutive)"." Still, seeing some existing academic discussion of this would be useful. 王 is not a particularly good example if in Archaic Chinese hwang was also written as 王, because then it's not clear whether the writer actually wrote hwangs or simply wrote as much of the word that he had a character for. That's why I was asking for a citation. --130.91.109.98 (talk) 20:39, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, that is an improvement. And yes, there is a question whether the character is truly bimorphemic, or whether derivational suffixes were simply ignored. (Either way, the script isn't purely logographic.) The problem with using other words is that you need a base of comparison, an un-suffixed form. I'll see what I can track down. kwami (talk) 20:45, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Not getting involved in the first but you can use 卅 and 卌 in sentences in Cantonese, for example in 佢買咗卅幾本書 "he bought some 30 books". I never considered the oddness of these 2 characters before :) Akerbeltz (talk) 18:02, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

To follow up, if you use it in a sentence, do you pronounce it as sānshi? --130.91.109.98 (talk) 20:39, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

No idea about Mandarin but in Cantonese it's sā a (2 syllables/words whatever) Akerbeltz (talk) 21:41, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Moons of Haumea

Cool, I never even heard of this dwarf planet before, I learned something today.  :) But why does the article say there are three moons, but only two are listed? Corvus cornix_talk 21:22, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, it's a work in progress. I've cut & pasted to keep the formatting the same as similar articles, and some text slipped through. Should be fixed up soon. kwami (talk) 21:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

RE: okina

My understanding is that IE versions prior to 7 cannot display the okina, so the template {{okina}} is used instead on all of the Hawaii-related articles. --Kralizec! (talk) 20:21, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

For you

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		For getting all the EL61 links changed to Haumea (dwarf planet), I think you deserve the working man's barnstar. Must have been tedious as heck. Serendipodous 09:40, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, it was either that or a nude beach party. I mean, come on, which would you have done? kwami (talk) 09:45, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Ataegina

Wow! I am seriously impressed by your work, and even more so by your accolades. Keep up the good work.

I would like to discuss one of your edits to one of my edits to the Ataegina article (chuckle). My intent was to show the identifier in the first sentence, then the name (as a link) in the second sentence (and, bonehead that I am, I forgot to link the name). All of which was intended to semantically show the evolution of the name.

Just wanted to state my case; I'll go with your decision.

Keep up the great work!

WeeWillieWiki (talk) 18:16, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

zhuyin for wu dialect

for shanghai and ningbo dialect, i know the extra letters, but do you know any letters that i Don't need?ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 22:07, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

You mean standard zhuyin letters which are not needed for Wu? kwami (talk) 22:16, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

yesㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 00:47, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, you presumably wouldn't need ㄓ, ㄔ, ㄕ, or ㄖ, though I don't see how you'd write xx [ʑ̊], ss [z], hh [ɦ], or initial glottal stop, so maybe some of ㄓㄔㄕㄖ get reused. For finals, you wouldn't need ㄞ, ㄟ, ㄠ, ㄡ, ㄥ, ㄤ, ㄦ. kwami (talk) 01:08, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Numeric format changes

Per your sweeping revisions to non-MoS-standard number formats on various science articles, I invite you to join the discussion at Talk:Earth#Number_format_changes. Thank you.—RJH (talk) 04:40, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Just did. kwami (talk) 04:41, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Move of Hakka (linguistics) to Hakka Chinese

Hakka Chinese could refer not only to a group of people with a linguistic background, but also to the language itself. It would have been better, IMO, to have entitled the new name Hakka Chinese Language instead, given that 'Chinese' in itself is loaded with different interpretations such as the writing system, a spoken family of languages, and a rather large ethnic group. You should really have consulted on the talk page first before making the move unilaterally.

A copy of this will be pasted in the Hakka (linguistics)/Talk:Hakka_Chinese talk page. 00:15, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Except that not everyone agrees it's a "language". A see also link can be placed at the top of the page. kwami (talk) 00:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

It's only a matter of semantics. Besides, now you've conflated Hakka Chinese (people) and (language/dialect), the original 'linguistics' was the original compromise... With respect to language, the Indonesian and Malay languages are so similar and mutually intelligible yet they are called languages. But, Spoken Hakka and spoken Wu are mutually unintelligible, and considered only dialects of Chinese. Dylanwhs (talk) 00:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe someone can come up with unambiguous wording. But "Hakka (linguistics)" makes about as much sense as "British (linguistics)". We should name our articles with the normal English phrase for the topic; ambiguities are taken care of with 'see also' links and disambig. pages. The normal English phrases for Chinese languages are "X Chinese", so per the MOS that's what we should use.

Anyway, let's take the debate to the talk page. kwami (talk) 00:37, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Hence the need for debate before your move. I assume it's reversible. Anyway, on the idea of 'British (Linguistics)' of course that's silly. You have 'English' for which which you could add 'linguistics' or phonology, or phonetics. I'm not saying that you should, but for Hakka (linguistics) at least you have a good idea what the article is about before clicking on it. The title of the article is therefore appropriate in its terse summary, and does away with the need for a disambiguation page. Why further add to the already amazing number of useless pages if you could have the title as succinct as that? Dylanwhs (talk) 00:44, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Because it's factually wrong, it's awkward, it violates Wikipedia standards, it's hard to enter in the search window, it implies Chinese languages are bizarre, etc. etc. Yes, "British (linguistics)" (not the same thing as "English(linguistics)", of course) is silly, just as silly as "Hakka (linguistics)". And changing the title doesn't involve adding any more pages. kwami (talk) 00:50, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Dear Kwamikagami, congratulations and thank you for following the community guidelines formed by Wikipedians earlier and enforcing them consistently. – Kaihsu (talk) 22:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, consistency is praiseworthy, but take note of past concensus on a subject before unilateral changes. Dylanwhs (talk) 05:57, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

That's what the discussion's about. kwami (talk) 08:05, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Ulster Scots

I reverted your move to Ulster Scots dialect, as the title Ulster Scots (linguistics) was recently established in a debate that you did not participate it. See Talk:Ulster Scots (linguistics)#Requested move. These kinds of classifications are rarely black and white. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 08:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Debate? There was no debate. kwami (talk) 09:22, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Writing systems map

Hi, I just noticed a small problem with your map on writing systems: the two words for the Mongolian script are in the wrong order. The left word reads "Bichig", the right word reads "Monggol" (roughly, anyway). The classical Mongolian script is read top-down, and from left to right, so what you wrote reads "Bichig Monggol". It should, however, read "Monggol Bichig". Can you please fix it? Best Regards, 11:44, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Good catch! Thanks. Unfortunately, I no longer have the photoshop original to modify, or at least I can't find it. kwami (talk) 21:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

MoS questions

You will get a quicker answer to your questions if you ask at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. That thread gets many daily posts and usually questions are answered promptly. There is also a Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) where replies are usually quick. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 20:54, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! kwami (talk) 21:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Rongorongo footnotes

Thanks for the hints, but footnotes are already being used for notes. Can I at least abbreviate the refs as "(Pozd. 2007:xx)" or something? This is what it looks like with full refs: Decipherment_of_rongorongo#Pozdniakov. kwami (talk) 00:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

You can use ref tags for both the notes and references separately by using the "group" feature. See how it is done in Mary Shelley, for example. Kaldari (talk) 18:06, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Beautiful. That's exactly what I was looking for when rongorongo went through FAC. kwami (talk) 18:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Maltese language

So how come you get to make a valid edit in a locked article and I can't?  ;) (Taivo (talk) 19:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC))

(See my congratulatory note on Talk:Maltese language :) (Taivo (talk) 21:58, 23 September 2008 (UTC))

Bedankt

Thanks for the change and advice. Somehow I have missed the [Flemish People] article...take care.--Buster7 (talk) 09:08, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

displaying vertical text on wikipedia

can you give me the thing where i insert words to display them vertically?ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 04:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any way to do that. Please let me know if you find out: vertical wikipedia would be cool.

BTW, you might want to check out Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese). We're discussing what to use instead of that silly "(linguistics)" tag on the Chinese language articles. kwami (talk) 07:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

i have two over here but the first one is sideways, and the second one...i havent tried writing large amounts with it yet.ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 19:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ

瓶 子 [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help)

or

瓶 子 [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help)

Yeah, I've seen people use tables. I was rather hoping there was a format tag that would allow us to just type, the way we can in Arabic. (BTW, I removed most of your examples, cuz they all looked the same on my browser.) kwami (talk) 19:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Error in your IPA linking script

Your IPA linking script removed an alternative pronunciation from Kerguelen Islands. I only noticed because one item followed by an "etc" in a sentence is exceedingly odd. I hope my fix of the problem was OK. Just lettting you know in case there were other similar cases, or there is an alternative explanation. Thanks, Graham87 11:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Actually, those aren't alternate pronunciations, they're just different dialects. When possible, we try to avoid listing a bunch of dialects for English pronunciaitons. (Why not include Australian?) If you follow the link, you'll see that Template:IPAlink-en covers both RP and GA, as well as Aussie and many others. /ɝː/, for example, is defined as the vowel in bird, however you pronounce it. kwami (talk) 18:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

OK fair enough, I didn't know that. Graham87 06:46, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the good version on Flemish

Hello. I'd like to thank you for a really good version of the article Flemish. I read it and did some tweaks/corrections, but there are still some things that need to be clarified.

• Indeed, the dominant Flemish dialect, Brabantian, is also spoken in southern Netherlands, where it is considered a dialect of Netherlands Dutch. – Well, linguists tend to classify Brabantian as spoken in Belgium and Brabantian as spoken in the Neth with each other. Though, I'd like to make it clear in the article that there are significant differences between them.

• The Brabantian tussentaal, for example, tends to drop "h"s, while the West Flemish tussentaal turns "g" into "h". – In this sentence, you should have said "dialect", because tussentaal is rather the phenomenon which is "uniting" the dialects, with Brabantian as main influence. There's only one tussentaal.

But as I said, it's really a good, neutral article which descibes the current situation correctly. (Btw, where do you have all this neutral information from? Or it is totally from existing articles/discussions here at Wikipedia?) Greetings, SPQRobin (talk) 18:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I know absolutely nothing about Flemish. I just tried to remove the obvious biases from the article, address a concern or two I saw on the talk page, and apply some common sense. I'm sure I got lots of stuff wrong, though, so thanks for cleaning up after me. The Brabantian comment, for example, was just a clumsy attempt to show that conceptions of Dutch & Flemish may be defined by the border, but that this isn't reflected on the ground. As for tussentaal, that's a completely foreign word for me. The article said both that there's a tussentaal, and that there's a different tussentaal for each dialect. I had no idea which was correct, so I left it more or less as it was. kwami (talk) 19:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Manchu alphabet

can you give me the latin equivalents of the manchu alphabet? theres a website that allows conversion from latin alphabet into manchu, and it displays pictures of the letters, so it can be displayed in a table on the article.ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 20:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The only transcription I'm aware of is,

a, e, i, o, u, ô (ligature), n, ng, q, k, γ (not Latin), g, k', g', χ (not Latin), x, b, p, s, š, t1, d1, t2, d2, l, m, č, ǰ, y, r, f, w; Chinese: c, ï, ž

The transcription's a bit different: ū for ô, h for both x and χ, g for both g and γ, k for both k and q, etc. With an intelligent converter, these and t1, d1, t2, d2 could be automatically determined by the following vowel, so you wouldn't need to input Greek or numerals. kwami (talk) 20:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

um i dont understand the rules on the converter. ill just show the website- [8]

ㄏㄨㄤㄉㄧ (talk) 16:39, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, if you follow the 'Manchu Script' link at left, it takes you to the full alphabet, with romanization in the left column. That's the basic convention they use. However, a few letters aren't easy to input, so under the input window on the page you directed me to, it describes their input conventions: x for š, v for ū/ô, etc. kwami (talk) 17:46, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Haumea

The dates you mentioned, March 7, 8, 9 2003, aren't in the quoted source. Could you tell me where you got them? Serendi^podous 06:35, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. I was hoping to integrate the Ortiz side of the controversy into the article, but didn't get to it today. The external link's at the bottom of the page, and one of the research team gives those dates. They never do give the discovery date, however, which I find odd. kwami (talk) 06:42, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Cantonese

Stop adding "Yue" to Cantonese, especially for spurious reasons!! That is just Mandarin pinyin used by some Mandarin people in China who do not know the English name of the language. It is not the name of the language.--Strawberycake (talk) 13:59, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

It is the name in English of the entire language, for people who restrict the name "Cantonese" for the dialect of Canton. kwami (talk) 17:38, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

No. Cantonese is the name of the entire language. The English word "Cantonese" exactly equals to "粵語" or "白話"，while "standard Cantonese" equals to "廣州話" or "廣府話"（"廣州話" is standard Cantonese, all native Cantonese speaker admit that）。See Chinese version. Mandarin pinyin "Yue" is nothing. --Strawberycake (talk) 13:10, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

It's English usage, as in Ethnologue. As such, it requires mention in the article. Whether we like it or not is irrelevant. kwami (talk) 19:51, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Rapa Nui language

why is the 'language family 13' of the page Rapa Nui language and the page Rapanui languages erased? It is clearly stated in the Ethnologue that Rapa Nui language is a language while Rapanui languages is a language family, it is two different things. It's just like the Quechua and Aymara languages, which are classified in the Quechuan languages and Aymaran languages groups respectively, if the erasing rules apply, those pages have to be deleted too. Kotakkasut (talk) 10:25, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Presumably because they're the same thing, it's a tiny island with just one language, at best it may have had a few dialects but certainly no Rapanui language family. Akerbeltz (talk) 17:46, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, RN is a relative isolate & therefore a "family" of its own. Certainly a RN "family" is nothing to create an article for. Quechua, on the other had, is a family of related languages. But I agree that either the Quechuan articles should be merged, or Quechua should be renamed for the specific dialect it describes. Aymara is different, however, than the Aymaran languages, and so should be a separate article. kwami (talk) 17:49, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

What about the Konkani language then? If there's an error in those articles mentioned, I suggest that you correct it to be fair with the Rapanui language article. Kotakkasut (talk) 13:07, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

No, the Konkani family is actually a family. kwami (talk) 17:51, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Fluoride again

Hi! I just stumbled upon the Water Fluoridation article and see that is is very biased in favor of the anti-fluoridation crowd. Do you have any interest in coming back to try to improve the article? --—CynRN ^(Talk) 20:55, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

If I can ever find that meta-study of 3000 fluoride studies, more than any drug but aspirin, I'll come back and fight to keep the article unbiased. But without that, I don't have enough to go on to keep me motivated. kwami (talk) 21:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Decipherment of rongorongo

Congratulations! I compliment you on how you handled the issues during FAC. A well-deserved star! Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 14:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I didn't even know yet! kwami (talk) 19:31, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Burusho

Hello,

First of all, thank you for your excellent edits to Burusho. However, I am having trouble with a nationalist who keeps reinstating the old version. I'm opening a discussion and your contribution would be very welcome. --Tsourkpk (talk) 17:45, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

*sigh* Yes, he, or s.o. like him, has been pushing this for years now. kwami (talk) 19:30, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Dear Kwamikagami,

There was a consesus for this article (see Discussion page).

As of the language, we agreed that the short explanation about the possibility of linguistic connection of Burusho language to other languages which is sourced should be mentioned.

As of the Burusho leaders' claims of connection to Ancient and Modern Macedonians, the situation is clear. It's not a nationalistic nor scientific claim. It's only a stand of these people's leaders which is very important for this article. No one wants nor can prove whether the Burusho people have such a historical or cultural connection and that's not the intension. The intension is only to inform about Burusho leaders' claims, not to prove anything.

I think this discussion is unneccessary. The "problem" was solved and is more than clear. However, some editors (especially from Greece) don't want to understand it and continue to revert with explanation "provide us with a reliable source to prove 'your' claims". I don't claim anything, my friends, I just give information and statements and prove that they were really given somewhere at some time.

I think that we've lost a lot of time in arguing about something that is so clear, the best way to solve this is to ask for an administrator's solution. Dimitar2007 (talk) 21:32, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

As I wrote on the talk page, I have no problem with mentioning Burusho visits to Macedonia. It's rather interesting. However, extended discussions of unsubstantiated Balkan-Burusho linguistic ties—which have been rejected in the language article—have no place in the ethnic article. kwami (talk) 21:38, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

The refs and basic idea were still there; I just added a sentence to expand on it. I doubt it's much more notable than that. (Maybe if I could read the reference I'd change my mind.) kwami (talk) 21:51, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Burushaski. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. If necessary, pursue dispute resolution. Dimitar2007 (talk) 18:34, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

We have sockpuppets pushing fringe material as mainstream. Perhaps you should be warning them? Ah yes, they're pushing the same thing you are. Funny coincidence that. kwami (talk) 18:42, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Nakh migrations

Hi, sorry for my late reply. Thanks for the explanation, but I was wondering what N-true and you specifically thought about User:Ingushetia's edits to those pages. Thoughts? Khoikhoi 19:54, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

BTW please reply on my talk page instead of yours. Khoikhoi 05:35, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I'd have to review what the edits were. We'll see. kwami (talk) 07:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Here you go: [9], [10], [11]. Khoikhoi 07:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, a few clods of manure: "Rise of the Sino-Caucasian culture"?? If there were such a thing, which is highly doubtful, there is no evidence for it. And it would certainly be much older than 5-6ka. I haven't seen the ref in question, but I seriously doubt that agriculture was the domain of the Nax, which almost certainly didn't yet exist—it would instead have been NEC. In the 2nd edit, he's conflated Nax & Vainax, a distinction which AFAIK is still maintained in the lit. In the third article you didn't give me a diff; I only see something about Soviet soldiers capitulating, which can be deleted as OR since there's no ref. kwami (talk) 08:05, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Inded, I couldn't find anything about "Sino-Caucasian culture" or mentioned in here. I saw mention of the word "Nakh" in the article so you might want to check it out. Maybe we can both get around to correcting the sentences eventually. Khoikhoi 23:47, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Had a chance to look at some summaries of the article. Indeed, it was NEC as a whole that is linked to agriculture, not any one branch. Fixed the two articles accordingly. kwami (talk) 01:13, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks. Please watchist the articles, I'll keep an eye on them too. Thanks again. Khoikhoi 05:57, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

"Science 19 May 2000: Vol. 288. no. 5469, p. 1158 DOI: 10.1126/science.288.5469.1158: "LINGUISTICS: Peering Into the Past, With Words Bernice Wuethrich Prehistorians typically rely on stones, bones, and DNA to piece together the past, but linguists argue that words preserve history too. Two new studies, both based on endangered languages, offer new insights into the identity of mysterious ancient peoples, from the first farmers to early inhabitants of the British Isles. Archaeologists have long known that some 10,000 years ago, ancient people in Mesopotamia discovered farming, raising sheep, cattle, wheat, and barley. And researchers knew that by 8000 years ago agriculture had spread north to the Caucasus Mountains. But they had little inkling of whether traces of this first farming culture lived on in any particular culture today. People have migrated extensively through the region over the millennia, and there's no continuous archaeological record of any single culture. Linguistically, most languages in the region and in the Fertile Crescent itself are relatively recent arrivals from elsewhere. Now, however, linguist Johanna Nichols of the University of California, Berkeley, has used language to connect modern people of the Caucasus region to the ancient farmers of the Fertile Crescent. She analyzed the Nakh-Daghestanian linguistic family, which today includes Chechen, Ingush, and Batsbi on the Nakh side and some 24 languages on the Daghestanian side; all are spoken in parts of Russia (such as Chechnya), Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Languages heard near the Caspian Sea today trace their ancestry back to the first farmers of the Fertile Crescent. Nichols had previously established the family tree of Nakh-Daghestanian by analyzing similarities in the related languages much the way biologists create a phylogeny of species. She found that three languages converge at the very base of the tree. Today, speakers of all three live side by side in the southeastern foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, suggesting that this was the homeland of the ancestral language--on the very fringes of the Fertile Crescent. To get a rough estimate of when the language arose, Nichols used a linguistic method that assumes a semiregular rate of vocabulary loss per 1000 years, and she dated the ancestral language to about 8000 years ago. Nichols also found that the ancestral language contains a host of words for farming. The Chechen words muq (barley), stu (bull), and tkha (wool), for example, all have closely related forms in the earliest branches of Daghestanian, as do words for pear, apple, dairy product, and oxen yoke--all elements of the farming package developed in the Fertile Crescent. Thus location, time, and vocabulary all suggest that the farmers of the region were proto-Nakh-Daghestanians. "The Nakh-Daghestanian languages are the closest thing we have to a direct continuation of the cultural and linguistic community that gave rise to Western civilization," Nichols says. Population geneticist Henry Harpending of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, has just begun the job of unraveling the genetic ancestry of Daghestanian speakers and is impressed with Nichols's work. "For years I wished linguists would get in the game. Nichols sure is." Nichols is now reconstructing the ancestral language, hoping for more clues to the culture of these early farmers. But she has to work fast, for the three Nakh languages are vanishing. Although there are still about 900,000 Chechen speakers left, the other two tongues have fewer speakers, and all three are being eroded by war, economic chaos, and Russian educational practices, Nichols says.""

P.S. I understand that English is not your native language. Proto- means PRE-. So if I say PROTO-INGUSH that mean ancestors of Ingush. http://www.blurtit.com/q602529.html I will report your immature behavior. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ingushetia (talk • contribs) 23:03, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

No. In linguistics, "proto-Ingush" means ancestral to Ingush but strongly implies not ancestral to other languages. Thank you for quoting the ref from Science. It proves my point. "Nakh-Daghestanian linguistic family, which today includes Chechen, Ingush, and Batsbi on the Nakh side and some 24 languages on the Daghestanian side" means that these languages are related: they form a language family. See the article Northeast Caucasian languages, a synonym for Nakh-Daghestanian. (Linguists such as Bernard Comrie have in the last few years determined that the Nakh languages are not particularly divergent, and are just another branch of Daghestanian, not coordinate with it.) kwami (talk) 00:01, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I wasn't really around when the edit war occurred, but I think he broke 3RR: [12], [13], [14], [15]. Khoikhoi 06:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to count that, even if it's a technical violation. He came up with a compromise edit on his fourth time round. However, when I fixed it up again (which made me 4 as well), he again reverted. If he keeps it up I'll block him. Meanwhile, restore/edit as you like. kwami (talk) 06:37, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

It's a very bad idea to block someone/use your admin powers against someone you're involved in a content dispute with. I would try to let a 3rd party handle it or go to WP:AN/3RR. Khoikhoi 06:54, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. kwami (talk) 06:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi

Hi Kwami, I'm sorry I was a rude to you on the Arabic numerals talk page. I guess your right, I shouldn't have posted comments without really investigating into the matter. BTW, I see you have an amazing edit count of over 40,000. I've added a service badge to your user page regarding it. Cheers. Arjun G. Menon (talk · mail) 13:22, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the accolade, Arjun. I admit I follow how I rank in edit count, and I did contemplate displaying a badge, but really, quality trumps quantity. Most of those were very minor edits. kwami (talk) 18:26, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

153 Hilda

This thing you want, it already exists.

With lagrange points?

Thanks! Perfect! (Hey, that's not lousy. It's at least close enough to get the point across.) kwami (talk) 17:17, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to port them to commons if you like. I wasn't especially happy with either, and nobody at Talk:Hilda family or Talk:153 Hilda seemed to care much for them, so I kinda abandoned them. WilyD 17:22, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't bother with Commons anymore. It's too much trouble to have to watch & wait three months for anything to be decided anytime anyone objects to anything, just to have to restore images that get deleted anyway.

I'm almost perfectly happy with the left image. Yes, it would be nice if Hilda obeyed Kepler's laws and matched up perfectly with the L points, but that's of secondary importance. An illustration like this is much more valuable than a verbal description for a lot, probably most, people. If someone objects to it not being perfect, let them do better! kwami (talk) 17:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Err, the image is as correct as it's precision - it's Keplerian less perterbations from the planets, since it's simulated data. Real Hilda family asteroids oscillated around the idealised orbit - this is J2000 data, as I recall, so it's Hilda's orbit from January 2000 - sometime in 2011, then repeated. The average orbit might match up perfectly with the L points - I'd have to either think about it or check Murray and Dermott, but any particular orbit does. Similar to finite resonance widths and so forth ... WilyD 17:41, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, my impression from the discussion was that it moved at a constant speed, and I couldn't tell the difference. I'll delete the note. kwami (talk) 17:45, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

No, it's simulated with ... SWIFT, probably. Orbital speed goes like square root of the radial distance, so an eccentricity of .141 means the speed is only changing by ~15%. I think I can eyeball it, but I'm not sure. I think the fact that it doesn't hit the Lagrange points dead on may confuse people, as it's thus not the greatest example for the Hilda family, but there's nothing you can do for 153 Hilda. WilyD 17:50, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I just changed the note to say that this is orbital data from 2000 and that Hilda seldom hits the L pts exactly. Hopefully that should cover it, but you might want to reword if you can think of something clearer.

For the Hilda family, it would be nice if we could show a dozen Hildas at once (without their orbits), but that's probably asking too much. kwami (talk) 17:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

IPA chart 2005

I say on the talk page of Image:IPA chart 2005.png that I'll be happy to generate an SVG file if someone tells me how, but there hasn't been any response. The only way I can think of is to first convert the Word doc to PDF, and then convert the PDF to SVG, but much of the text gets corrupted. Some of the fonts get lost along the way. Is there an extension that would allow me to convert directly? kwami (talk) 21:44, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry I didn't check the talk page, I was just routinely tagging. Anyway, without seeing what went wrong for myself it's hard to say what exactly goes wrong, but I gather PDF is okay, right? So maybe there's something wonky with the program you use to convert the PDF to SVG. There are a few things you could do. You could try a different program to do the conversion, a quick websearch yields the names Pstoedit (commandline utility), Gsview (a PDF/PostScript viewer that calls Pstoedit), and Inkscape (but not yet in the main branch). Another option would be to grep the file for the font names or to try to select the text objects and see what kind of font names the converter made up, so you can correct what went wrong. It's of course also possible that the SVG is okay but that the drawing program doesn't load it correctly. If all else fails, I can recreate the file as an SVG using Inkscape, but that will involve drawing the table etc., so in that case I will take my sweet time. Oh, and thanks in advance for your trouble. Bye, Shinobu (talk) 02:31, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I was using Inkscape, actually. I find that program a huge pain in the ass. Yes, the PDF is fine—that's what I generated the PNG from. I'll try some of the other programs. kwami (talk) 02:47, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

reply

Hi! No, there's no such word. We simply say "американец" (US citizen) and "американский" (of US). These words can refer to American continents in general but in overwhelming majority of the cases they are used in narrow sense. Of course slang has a few words of that meaning, ranging from offensive ones to pretty neutral, but still unsuitable for an encyclopaedia. Alæxis_¿question? 05:20, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

nasau

Hi, re nasau in Tok Pisin - sorry, no, I've never heard the word. It's possible it is used in some regions - Tok Pisin has a very high rate of innovation and regional variation - but I think it would be a recent development if it exists at all, and so unlikely to be the origin of anything in another language. Cheers, Wantok (toktok) 23:49, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I'll fact tag it. kwami (talk) 23:50, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Need your help

Hi, Kwamikagami. I don't know whether you can read old Korean language or not, but if possible, could you check the history of Empress Myeongseong (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and the SPA Bukubku (talk · contribs)? The person created his account just after some AFD for South Korean cultural claims was open and was canvassed by now indef.blocked Michael Friedrich (talk · contribs) to 2channel, the biggest Japanese we bforum in Japan as well as known for an anti-Korean bashing site. Bukubku obviously seems to be a sock per the history of the article and ongoing disruption by the web-forum. The user's been taking over mesh.ad.jp IP user's consistent vandalism to the article and also has been checking on me per his admission as interruption to a discussion between me and another user. Bukubku and sock ip users have tried to insert spurious citations which are regarded not only unreliable, but also tried to forge that the murder of the empress ordered by Miura Goro was made by Jo Hui-yeon's order. I checked the sources, but I could not find any of mentioned info. That means they keep lying even though their sources are not backing up their claims. Therefore, I ask you to check the sources and exam the duck test.

It seems like they provoke me to violate 3RR. I've been stalked and harassed by Japanese editors' on and off wiki for one year, and they even make a stalking site dedicated to me http://www3.atwiki.jp/apple-tree/ (appletrees is my former name) because I've filed many RFCU files on many disruptive sockpuppeters and many are blocked. I think people at ANI would say "oh, that's a content issue?" and then gone. So well, could you do me a favor? Thanks.--Caspian blue (talk) 00:17, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't read Old Korean. I can figure enough out for the hangul articles, but that's only because they're strongly constrained by context.

You should be flattered there are sites dedicated to you. If you ever feel from your wiki activities that you don't have a real life, remember these folks have even less of one.

Actually forging references, as opposed to disagreement on their interpretation, is vandalism, not a content dispute, though few admins will be able to verify your claims. Sorry that I'm not one of them. However, if there's a pattern of behaviour, they can ban accounts even without being able to read the sources. kwami (talk) 00:48, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Obviously, they don't read Korean which I've acknowledged from useless discussions with the SPA. However, they just forge the content as if the murder order was done by Koreans. Only one source (most of them are actually duplicates) states that there are Korean collaboraters but they make up Jo Hui-yeon is the leader for the murder. It seems like Bukubku (talk · contribs) seized the moment to make me blocked as s/he keeps speaking inconsistent story and doing vandalism. Please don't say such kidding. I'm very pissed off after finding out the stalking site. That is a libel! There is none of admins able to speak Korean (only one admin who can read Korean is not interested in history subject and does not come to ANI) and the source are written in old Korean, so a translation tool is not effective. I feel just frustration again and again.--Caspian blue (talk) 01:00, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I've asked Bukubku to quote the relevant passage. Since it's so obscure, that's a reasonable request for an admin to make. kwami (talk) 01:10, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

The citations they use are Annals of Gojong and Sunjong which are regarded "forged documents" by scholars because it was written by Japanese order during the occupation period as well as incorrect/much omitted info and blatant praises for Empire of Japan. Besides, [[16] that the users keep inserting does not even mention about Bukubku's claim. Moreover, the users have tried to change the style of the Empress to Queen. The other info also mislead that Empress deserved to be a commoner for her demeanor (which was also written by force and King's life was at stake). Anyway, thank you for the help. ANI does only work for articles with English citations.--Caspian blue (talk) 01:20, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your message, Kwamikagami. Jo Hui yeon was former Military Minister at that time. After the success of coup he became Military Minister again. But soon King refuged the Russian Legation. Then King said Jo Hui yeon was one of criminals. He was the highest rank person in the criminals. Japanese troops must have been under the order of Japanese high official in this case Miura Goro. Similarly, Korean troops must have been under the order of Korean high official. So I wrote former Military Minister of Korea Jo Hui yeon and Miura Goro ordered. If you feel not good. Shall I write the all person's name who King said the criminals or Shall I write Several Korean Officers? And I have a petition what discussions should be discussed in Talk:Empress Myeongseong. Some people didn't discuss in Talk:Empress Myeongseong, and they deleted the article without consensus.

That is your original research. You don't have any source to back up your clam except the duplicated "spurious sources". That is called vandalism. Miura Goro's order was cited, but you don't. The collaboraters are of course charged criminals, but Japan court aquitted the charge of Japanese criminals and they paved their success from the murder. I should remove your "falsification" You've been warned more than enough.--Caspian blue (talk) 02:20, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

To:Caspian blue: First: I understood the issue of Empress to Queen that the issue has several opinions. So I didn't edit the issue after you assigned me. Second: I know your opinion Annals of Gojong and Sunjong which are regarded forged documents. I think that was regarded forged documents in South Korea, not others. And in this case, Annals of Gojong and Sunjong is same Official Gazzete of Korea that was published at that time. So I land the Annals of Gojong and Sunjong, too.--Bukubku (talk) 02:06, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Not others? Why did not UNESCO designate it as the master piece unlike other annals? The citation that you put are all "premary sources", not secondary sources that scholars have proved. Do not vandalise the article with your assumption.--Caspian blue (talk) 02:20, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Bukubku, I was wondering if you could quote the relevant passage. In the original Korean. kwami (talk) 02:15, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Caspian, a disagreement on the authenticity of sources is not "vandalism". Let's see what Bukubku can come up with. If there is only mention of this in sources that were written under Japanese occupation, we can say as much in the article. kwami (talk) 02:23, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Falsification on citation constitutes "vandalism" as you said earlier. He admits that he added his original research and synthesis which are not only all violations of Wikipedia's core policies, but also "disruptive lying".--Caspian blue (talk) 02:31, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

You're assuming bad faith, which is also against core policies. Perhaps B deserves it, perhaps not. In the mean time, I expect B to provide a quote of the relevant passage. If he can't, then we delete the passage. And you're correct, inferring that a title means a particular person when it's not explicit in the text is OR—but it's hardly vandalism. If B can provide an appropriate quote, and you believe the source is not reliable, then we can mention that in the article: 'Jo is alleged to have ordered the assassination in documents commissioned by the Japanese occupational authorities' or some such. kwami (talk) 02:38, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've been watched and he suddenly interrupted into a discussion between me and Sennen goroshi after his break. I have no reason to abuse good faith policy to the obvious SPA. You were kidding at me that I "should" be proud of the stalking and attack site. So please do not expect me to do a good faith to his repeated vandalism to the article. Jo was one of the collaraborater, not a leader as he forged. He could not provide the source, because I could not find any mention about his claim from the sources. The falsification of the article is clearly vandalism.--Caspian blue (talk) 02:47, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

No, Caspian, it is not. It appears to be OR, and on that basis in unacceptable. But we don't know that Bukubku is one of your stalkers. I know that must upsetting (and I was attempting to lighten the mood by joking about it, not to upset you further), but for all I know B is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's happened before. Perhaps if I knew the full history, it would be obvious to me, but as things stand it is not. Meanwhile I've explained to B that editor synthesis is not appropriate, and that if his sources do not explicitly state that Jo gave the order, then that passage needs to be deleted. I have no reason to think he's been anything but cooperative. Let's see how things play out. kwami (talk) 02:57, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

It is not OR. He ignored my point-out on his blatant falisfication and he really meant it as his repeated violation of the policies. He also made edit wars over the style of the empress. If we're so strict about the style, there were no emperor in history of Japan except Meiji, Taisho, Hirohito. Many Korean media call the current "Tenno" as Japanese king, so should it be reflected to the article? Korean and other countries call her with the style except the Japan. Why should he insist on using "Queen Min"? That is how Japanese revisionist historians' attempt to defame her. Her brief posthumous status as a commoner was done by force and Gojong's life was almost at stake. The user should've put such information, but made a synthesis that she deserved to be dead like that. --Caspian blue (talk) 03:12, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your message. I deleted the articles you regarded my OR. and I deleted the citation from Annals of Gojong, too. I didn't know UNESCO didn't designate it as the master piece unlike other annals. Thank you Caspian blue. and I apologize.--Bukubku (talk) 03:20, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I already said the same info to your talk page before, and it is so good that you changed your mind after Kwami's intervention.--Caspian blue (talk) 03:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

No need to be confrontational. It only makes you look bad, when Bukubku is being cooperative. kwami (talk) 03:31, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I only said about truth.--Caspian blue (talk) 03:54, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Caspian, enough. I've said what I have to say. Let Bukubku present his evidence. kwami (talk) 03:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Kwami. I really appreciate your help, but I do not want to argue over the different point of view on the same one.--Caspian blue (talk) 03:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Caspian, another of your objections is to calling her Queen. That certainly is inappropriate if the article is titled Empress, not as a matter of POV, but merely of consistency. I've added a new section on this to the talk page and hope it should soon be cleaned up. kwami (talk) 03:29, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Other queen consorts are always styled as "wanghu" (왕후), not "bi (비)" such as "Munjeong Wanghu (Queen Munjeong)" who was born in Yun clan. She is not called "Queen Yun". Just like the example, Queen Min (민비) is the very inappropriate and disgraceful title only given to divested queen consort or second wife of the king. Empress Myeongseong is how the Korea posthumously named her.--Caspian blue (talk) 03:40, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your helpful message, Kwami. and you created a new section on the talk page, thank you.--Bukubku (talk) 07:34, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

uh huh

so... instead of fixing it... you revert the edit entirly... and that makes sence how?--Jakezing (talk) 02:01, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

As not being a waste of my time. I don't care which version we end up with. kwami (talk) 02:13, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

PNG date formats

Hi, in answer to your question, date formats in PNG are generally dd/mm/yyyy - as with many other things, it's a result of the Australian colonial presence and continuing substantial influence of Australian culture on PNG. Cheers, Wantok (toktok) 03:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! kwami (talk) 03:37, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Relexification

Excellent copy edits. (Taivo (talk) 02:15, 10 October 2008 (UTC))

A belated thanks. kwami (talk) 09:12, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Hank Williams Song

It's pronounced /kə'laɪdʒə/. Not sure why it's spelt so oddly. I really have no interest in editing Wikipedia, but I do look up things here sometimes, after which I am inevitably disappointed. If you would like to earn yourself another barnstar and some major ePenis I would suggest rewriting the page for Gitche-Manitu. I am quite familiar with the scholarship surrounding Anishinaabeg Ethnohistory, and I must say that that (uncited, or rather badly documented) article is in a poor state that you people should be ashamed of. [[User:Kyle543 |Kyle543]] (talk) 03:07, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Navenby

Hi! The name is pronouced as "Nave" - as in part of a church, then "en" and then "bee". Don't think that is quite the scientific way of writing it! So, it is: Nave-en-bee If you don't think it is right in the article, please feel free to change it. I ran it past the pronunciation bods at Wiki while writing the article, so had hoped that it was OK. -- Myosotis Scorpioides 10:12, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

That's fine, but we really should show where the stress lies. I don't want to just make a guess. kwami (talk) 20:32, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I left a message on the talk page but, just incase you haven't seen it, the stress is on the 'nave' part of the name.-- Myosotis Scorpioides 10:33, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! That clears it up. kwami (talk) 17:25, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

69.243.42.249

I've re-blocked for 1 week. We don't indefinitely block IP addresses. Regards, Rjd0060 (talk) 20:20, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay. kwami (talk) 20:31, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Burusho

While he was definitely heading for a block I think in the long run it is best for admins to not block users with whom they are themselves involved in content disputes. It might cast shadows on your integrity as an admin.·Maunus·ƛ· 00:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. kwami (talk) 00:20, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

History of Alphabet

Hi Kwamikagami (or should I call you Sabt, which is Saturday in my language :-)) I have noticed you removed my additions to the article of "History of Alphabet." May I know why. I believe my additions adds value to the sequence of the article, fills some missing information, and is appropriate. I appreciate your explanation for me to improve my contribution and collaboration on Wikipedia [BTW I am now translation the article to Arabic} (Aboluay (talk) 19:22, 17 October 2008 (UTC)).

Unicode for seal script

um is there a unicode for seal script or something.Count Dooku of Serenno (talk) 19:44, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

No. For practical purposes, seal script is a graphic variant of Chinese characters, and no more needs distinct encoding than grass script, or italics in the Roman alphabet. Or at least the Small Seal Script: I found the following comment on the Unicode web site:

Graphologically, the Han script ("Chinese characters") has long been considered a single script, adapted for use by neighboring cultures, but not separated into distinct scripts by such usage. Historically very early versions of the Chinese character usages (e.g., the Great Seal script) probably rightly qualify as distinct scripts, but such distinctions are irrelevant to the status of Han synchronically.

This suggests that at least someone at Unicode might be thinking of adding old variants of Chinese to the historical scripts plain, along with Egyptian, Mayan, and the like, but I don't know if there are any actual plans to do this, or when it might happen if there are. kwami (talk) 19:54, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to reply. As for ABJAD, it is Phoenician. If you look at the Phoenician order of alphabet, they start with "Alep". "bet", "Gimmel", "dalet" which is the same representation as "a", "b", "j" "d", thus the "abjad" (you may check the table in the article.) While Alphabet is coming the way the first two letter (Alep) and (Bet) are pronounced. Arabic and Latin used the same pronunciation later on. In addition, I believe there must be some mention in the article about how the Phoenician separated the words. Don't you think? By the way, I am impressed with your vast knowledge espcially with linguistics... are you familiar with Arabic language? (Aboluay (talk) 20:07, 17 October 2008 (UTC))

I took 2nd semester Arabic at university. It's fun when everyone in the class knows more than you, and you have to catch up. I had a real mental block with Arabic because of the lack of written vowels (I tend to learn visually), but even that one semester was enough to show me how easy it is to predict the vowels in Arabic, so I no longer have a problem with it. I don't remember much, but if I ever travel to an Arabic-speaking country, I'll be able to pick it up quickly. The main thing I've used Arabic for on Wikipedia is working out the Arabic originals for all the Arabic-derived star names we use in English.

Yes, the ABC order may be found in Phonecian, as well as the names, but "alphabet" and "abjad" are not from Phoenician. Easy enough to demonstrate: for one, 𐤀 was pronounced aleph, not alpha as in Greek. For another, 𐤂 was pronounced g, not j as in (Classical) Arabic. By your reasoning you could claim that abugida is Phoenician, but the word itself is Ethiopian. Daniels, who first used the term "abjad" in English, specifically says that it is from Arabic, and any dictionary will give you a Greek etymology for "alphabet".

As for word spacing, languages all over the Mediterranean used : and · to separate words—including Phoenician, Aramaic, Carian, Greek, and Latin. Spacing was not used in Phoenician, and did not appear in Europe until the 8th century CE. Forms of word separation often spread across scripts. Thanks—that's a good idea for a short article. kwami (talk) 21:06, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Taiwanese Hokkien

Hi tH,

Several people have objected to the name Taiwanese Hokkien, as the term used by the ROC is evidently Taiwanese Minnan (or actually, just "Minnan" in English, but it's disambiguated in Chinese). I don't care either way myself (against govt usage, "Taiwanese Hokkien" appears to be twice as common as "Taiwanese Minnan" on Taiwanese websites, at least according to Google), but thought you might want a say. kwami (talk) 20:10, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Both names are presented at the top of the article, and Taiwanese Minnan redirects there. My concern was that the language's name isn't the most common use of the word "Taiwanese", which has many meanings. It doesn't matter to me whether the article on the language is named "Taiwanese Hokkien" or "Taiwanese Minnan". And at this point, it would be picking at nits since both terms are mentioned at the beginning of the lead paragraph. The Transhumanist    20:16, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Hainanese Dialect Question

Hi Kwamikagami. In the Hainanese article, you edited the article to say "It is mutually unintelligible with other Min Nan dialects...etc" How do you know that the Hainanese dialect is mutually unintelligible with other Min Nan dialects? Can you speak Min Nan? Sonic99 (talk) 03:27, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

No, I don't. I'm going on sources, and by other editors. What I've seen says that Teochew–Swatow have only limited intelligibility with Amoy–Hokkien, and that Hainanese is more distant still. If you believe it is intelligible, bring it up on the talk page. A change of wording or even page name may be in order. kwami (talk) 05:54, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Shogi Good Article nomination

Hi, this article does not meet a few of the requirements for Good Articles. One of the most obvious is that needs to be fully referenced. I would recommend withdrawing the nomination, as a reviewer might quick-fail the article. Listing it at Wikipedia:Peer review would probably be more productive, as you would get feedback from several editors. Good luck with the article. GaryColemanFan (talk) 22:03, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, will do. I thought both full referencing and peer review were for FA. kwami (talk) 22:05, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Help in pronunciation dispute?

Hey, I am in a dispute over pronunciation at Talk:Lich#IPA Pronunciation in article, and I was wondering if you could come offer an outside opinion, since you seem to be much more knowledgeable in these matters than I am. I apologize in advance for the fact that the dispute is extremely trivial...but this other editor won't back off.

For a quick summary of the dispute, basically, the other editor is saying that the article should give /laɪk/ as a pronunciation of "lich," because a different word ("like") also pronounced /laɪk/ used to be spelled the same way in Middle English or something like that. I have been saying that pronunciation is irrelevant because it's a different word, and that the historical evidence only proves that "like" used to be spelled differently, not that "lich" (in this context) used to be pronounced differently.

Anyway, if you are free sometime, I would greatly appreciate it if you could offer an opinion there...don't feel compelled to read the entire argument, as most of it is just me and the other editor repeating ourselves over and over again anyway. Thank you, —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 14:53, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

English alphabet

My edit was simple copyediting that only tried to make things less confusing and easier to understand by adding parentheses and using shorter sentences. I didn't change any content. Could you please explain what you mean with "errors"? Thanks, Espoo (talk) 10:38, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

A couple things. I was going to bed and was just too tired to clean them up: saying that 'blind' is derived from the letter ef, and confusing the plurals. The rest didn't strike me as any more legible than the old version, so I didn't see any reason to stick with it. kwami (talk) 17:35, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

The refference added explains that there is no "legend" of hunza being related to maceodnians. the myth was created 12 years ago and the article explains it. There is no evidence for such a "legend" no link provided. This "legend" is as young as 12 years ago and it is being wrongly passed as if it is centuries old