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Portal Templates

Hi Certes, thanks for agreeing to have a look at my request for possible improvements to Portal templates/modules as I mentioned on Northamerica1000's talk page. Apologies for the delay in responding, but real life got in the way (as it tends to do), and also for the long post, but I want to explain it clearly. Thanks also for the enlightening link to ongoing discussions and collaborations between "Deletioneers" in the "Portal Deletion Squadron" (PDT - what's wrong with hurling back a pejorative term or two when they're launched at Portal defenders relentlessly and usually at random?). The PDT seems to consist of four primary operatives now, BHG, RMcL, NewsH and MarkS, all equally committed to the cause and zealously parroting the standard "party line", of rigorously quoting verbatim the POG sentences about broad topics, large numbers of readers and maintainers, and treating this like they are statements of imperatives: of absolute requirements, whilst conveniently ignoring the obvious ambiguity of the actual wording of "should be" and "likely to". I think I'll stop there or I'll get over-exasperated about the continual misrepresentations and false allegations by the squadron members. I'll probably post a separate set of observations about that issue in due course, or on some portal discussion, at the risk of being labelled a "Portalista", a fantasist, a mendacious dissembler, a purveyor of FUD, a defender of abandoned crud, a user lacking in comprehension skills, a user of Humpty Dumpty English, as only working on portal because they are fun, etc, etc, etc .... Grrr ....

I hope you're still open to having a look at the technical issue as I see it with the Portal Templates. If so, it might be informative to have a look at Portal: Scotland (P:SCO) as I've currently restructured it. Basically it always had a large number of Selected articles, Selected Pictures, Selected quotes etc which were developed or "maintained" over a number of years from approx 2007 - 2012. Then real life took over, as is the way, and upon returning to editing, I was horrified to find WP:ENDPORTALS was in full swing. Then TTH seemed to take up the largely dormant WP:PORT and came up with many interesting ideas, which seemed to have some merit. It was about that time that I first interacted with you ( and came to the observation that you are indeed a "template/Lua guru", despite your modesty). You were most helpful in resolving some of my technical queries. Anyway, long story short, TTH just went berserk with the automated tools and the rest is history. Mass MFD's and a subsequent drip feed of individual ones.

It seemed to me that several common themes, on technical issues, emerged from those discussions:

  • 2. The sheer number of sub-pages and long term maintenance implications;
  • 3. The frequent and numerous appearance of the dreaded "Lua script timeout" error, rendering the Portal in question virtually unusable;
  • 4. Inflexibility of the "purge" mechanism to refresh content. (a two step process every time);


At the time of completion of the two Mega-MFD's by BHG, it was obvious to me that P:SCO suffered from most (if not all) of the above problems. So I resolved to solve them, each in turn:

*1 was relatively easy to solve via use of the Portal Transclusion Templates;
*2. See Later, where the crux of my query lies ...
*3 At the time of starting to re-construct / re-vamp the Portal (approx Feb 2019, I think), I had approx 105 Selected articles, Over 80 Selected pictures, 95 Selected biographies ( I had added these in to ensure "broad" coverage of scope) and 107 Selected Quotes. There was also the addition of 23 panorama header images (rotating capability). for added scope. Needless to say it was a usability nightmare; Error Script central erupted and that was with me using a pretty fast PC with cache cleared between re-loads. Totally unusable for readers. The problem was solved by resorting to a tabbed layout and splitting content equally between tabs. Less than ideal, but workable enough.
*4 I decided to experiment with the random "slideshow mode" of presentation of individual sub-boxes (much the same as was developed for "random Slideshow"). This would obviate the need for a two stage "purge" process, which is very clunky and counter intuitive for new users, who Portals are supposed to cater for. The problem as I saw it was the need for flexibility (in a carefully considered, hand curated set of articles/ images etc). That seemed to be a major theme of the MFD's .The articles I was dealing with ranged from 1-2 line lede sections to pretty comprehensive discussions of the topic (eg Holyrood Palace and the Scottish Reformation and often, images that I felt could be improved upon. The usual method of invoking the template (with selected defined parameters), followed by a list of articles to apply those parameters to ensures that all articles in the list follow the selection of parameters. This results in a selection of unevenly sized article intro's and, often, less than optimal images.

I ended up using transcluded article content on many sub-pages (not ideal, but an improvement). The subpage transclusions specify the paragraph numbers and chosen image individually, to suit the selected article / biography. The wiki mark-up is much along the lines of: 

     {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow| paragraphs=| files=| more= 
        | Portal: Scotland/Selected articles/1  
        | Portal: Scotland/Selected articles/2   
        | Portal: Scotland/Selected articles/3
        ETC
        ETC
     }}

What would be useful in my view would be a situation where the relevant parameters can be applied individually to the articles in the list, rather than collectively. In other words picking up the parameters individually from the list of items e.g.: That way the transclusions are directly into the Portal thus eliminating the need for subpages, and each item in the portal-boxes can be equally balanced for size of content and image choice can be more appropriate, rather than a default article one. The wiki mark-up would be much along the lines of: 

     {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow| paragraphs=| files=| more= 
        | Scottish Reformation | paragraphs=1-2 | files= SomeNewImage.jpg| more=
        | Doune Castle | paragraphs=2-4 | files=1 |more=
        | Falkirk Wheel | paragraphs=1-3 | files= SomeOtherNewImage.jpg |more=
        ETC
        ETC
     }}

I'm not sure if any of this is possible, but it would be very flexible if it is. I hope that I've explained things clearly, but if not drop me a note and I'll try to clarify. Anything you can do would be greatly appreciated. --Cactus.man ✍ 00:04, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for all the hard work, Cactus.man. That's a very clear explanation of the remaining problems.
You've already found the best way to deal with both numerous subpages and vulnerable content forks. (Unfortunately, many portals fixed in that way were reverted on the grounds that they selected topics with the help of a template or category, and most such cases then sailed through MfD with the rationale that the ancient version the nominator just resurrected was junk.) We should avoid cases where someone has hand-crafted a summary that is better than the lead and is diligently maintaining it, but they are few in number and can probably go through the bold-revert-apologise process.
Lua timeouts occur on the Wikimedia server. Browsing on a better PC won't help. One solution involves creating a handful of subpages, as you've already done with Portal:Scotland/Tabs, etc. The subpages are normally generated along with the main page, giving no benefit. However, we can prepare a complex subpage in advance to contain only simply text which can be transcluded quickly. This development is in progress. See Wikipedia:Bot_requests/Archive_79#A_Bot_to_update_Portal's_In_the_news_section, which has applications beyond ITN.
You can add a one-click purge here (Appearance section; third item) but that's a per-user setting. {{Purge box}} appears to flash up a confirmation dialog which goes away without me clicking Yes (and presumably does the purge). If it does the same for you, rather than obeying some clever confirm=no option I set years ago and forgot about, then that could be a way forward.
And finally, on to the meat of your query. Originally we had just {{Transclude lead excerpt}} which displays one article and only needs one set of files=, paragraphs=, etc. Now that multi-article templates use the same module, I agree that one set of parameters may not fit all articles. It should be easy to implement in the module but the template syntax is tricky. I think the example above could be made to work but I don't know of an existing template which handles multiple parameters with identical names, distinguishing them by position, and that technique might well be frowned upon. We also need to distinguish between files= which should apply to all articles (current usage) and files= which should apply only to the last article. One answer is files1= etc. but that involves some counting if only the 37th article needs special treatment and is an accident waiting to happen when someone deletes article 13 without changing the numbers below. The best compromise I can think of is to use an escaped parameter separator within parameters:
     {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow | paragraphs=1-5 | files=1 <!-- defaults apply where not overridden below -->
        | Scottish Reformation{{!}}paragraphs=1-2
        | Doune Castle{{!}}paragraphs=2-4{{!}}files=1
        | Falkirk Wheel{{!}}more=go round again
        | Edinburgh
        | Glasgow
     }}
A less conventional alternative is a single character that can't appear in article titles: one of # < > [ ] | { }. "#" is in use for transcluding a section, angles appear in more=<br> etc., "|" delimits the real parameter and "[" introduces an external link, so reluctantly we're left with "]":
        | Doune Castle]paragraphs=2-4]files=1
That's more concise but totally unintuitive. Better suggestions welcome.
By the way, files= only accepts numbers. Accepting filenames would be a separate enhancement.
Hope that helps, Certes (talk) 10:25, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the detailed reply Certes.
As usual, very helpful and informative. I'll start experimenting with your suggestions and hopefully can get a suitable outcome to eliminate the sub-pages I've just got some further questions / comments:
  • I already have the "one-click purge" set in my preferences, but it has no effect. I still have to manually click the purge button on the rsultant screen. I'm using Firefox and I suspect there's some conflict with one of my extensions, Can't be bothered to troubleshoot to find which one is the culprit (it's normally one that I'm not prepared to do without anyway!).
  • The use of the | escape character looks promising, and I agree that it's preferable to using ]. A quick test suggests to me that the pipe character needs to be included or the template just bypasses the desired listed file. I also seem to be unable to get the articles to accept the alternative escaped parameter. See User:Cactus.man/Sandbox/P-Sco where the following wikitext produces the non-desired results:
          {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow| paragraphs=1-3| files=1| more=
              | Scottish Reformation|{{!}}paragraphs=1
              | Picts|{{!}}files=2
              | Edinburgh{{!}}paragraphs=1
              | Doune Castle
          }}
Scottish reformation still produces paragraphs 1-3, rather than just para 1.
Picts shows file1, rather than 2.
Edinburgh is bypassed completely due to the missing pipe character before the escape character.
Doune displays correctly per the default parameters set in line 1.
Am I making some horrendous schoolboy error, or have I misunderstood your suggestion?
  • Is it correct to assume that the template for file numbers traverses no further than the lede section?. If so, is it possible to search in further sections for images? As an aside, I've been having trouble to select any images at all. The parameter files=1should select the image in the infobox but doesn't. I seem to remember there was some discussion about this on the Wikiproject pages some time ago, but I can't recall the details or what the solution was. Any comments would be helpful.
All the best. --Cactus.man ✍ 19:14, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: The only mistake you're making is assuming that the Lua code already handles this new syntax, when at the moment it's just an incomplete proposal. Adding {{!}} now breaks things, because the module naively looks for an article called "Scottish Reformation|paragraphs=1", but it's the right syntax and should work later. I'm working on the changes in the sandbox but they're not ready to test yet.
Yes, the template for file numbers traverses no further than the lede section (or whatever section is specified with the Article#Section syntax). Originally the module only supported {{Transclude lead excerpt}}, which does exactly what it says. With some work we could look further for files. For the many pages that currently use a blanket |files=1 and often show no file, that would make new images appear, which may or may not be helpful. Certes (talk) 19:32, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for that, I suspected it would be some sort of cock up on my part. I'll leave you to work on it in peace. Cheers --Cactus.man ✍ 19:54, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: It's hard to test this change with the slideshow templates, because their /sandbox versions invoke the sandbox version of another module but the original version of the module I'm working on. If you want to look at what I've done so far, you can use the "Transclude ... excerpt/sandbox" templates, e.g.
	{{Transclude selected excerpt/sandbox| paragraphs=1-3| files=1| more=Click here| selected=2
	| 1=Scottish Reformation{{!}}paragraphs=1
	| 2=Picts{{!}}files=2
	| 3=Edinburgh{{!}}paragraphs=1{{!}}more=
	| 4=Doune Castle{{!}}more=Mair...
	}}
in which |selected=2 picks the Picts because it's the second article. The other articles will be ignored unless you change that number.
I've found one limitation of the syntax. |more= resets the "click here for more" text to the default of "Read more...". There's no way to make it disappear only for this article. We can probably live with that. Certes (talk) 20:08, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
The parameter overriding seems to work well - bravo! Hopefully, transferring it to the slideshow version template will be a straightforward exercise. The |more= limitation that you mention won't be an issue for me, I always have it set to the default "Read more" anyway. Keep up the good work :) --Cactus.man ✍ 22:03, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: I've released the changes. There's one more gotcha: I used |1= etc. in my example above, because I got no output with unnamed parameters. I realised what I was doing wrong: the = in the page option was making them into named parameters, e.g. a parameter called "Scottish Reformation|paragraphs" with value 1. Unnamed parameters do work but you'll need to escape the = signs:
	{{Transclude selected excerpt/sandbox| paragraphs=1-3| files=1| more=Click here| selected=2
	 | Scottish Reformation{{!}}paragraphs{{=}}1
	 | Picts{{!}}files{{=}}2
	 | Edinburgh{{!}}paragraphs{{=}}1{{!}}more{{=}}
	 | Doune Castle{{!}}more{{=}}Mair...
	}}
I've documented the changes in Template:Transclude lead excerpt/doc#Page options etc. but I haven't changed the slideshow documentation: that's another layer that other editors have added on top of the underlying code that I wrote. I hope that does at least some of what you need and will be useful for others. Certes (talk) 11:44, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
@Certes: Thanks so much for doing all this. I think I've got the gist of what needs to be done now - off to experiment. At least I'll be able to transclude articles/ biographies directly into the portal now, maintaining a balanced size of text excerpts and removing the need for sub-pages. I can live with the occasional less than ideal (IMHO) image, so I'll start converting the body of the portal shortly. Hopefully that's even less ammunition for the deletioneers to pounce upon.
As an aside, and not wishing to burden you further, if you have any ideas about how to pass in a named image parameter as opposed to a number, that would be superb. I wont even bother you with my half-baked ideas (all based on a primitive and cringeworthy, rudimentary understanding of programming). Thanks again for all your hard work on this. --Cactus.man ✍ 12:30, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: I've now added support for a named image parameter. Because a list would be difficult to parse (image names can contain commas, etc.) you can only have one named image file, but it's compatible with the previous enhancement so you can vary it per article with Article{{!}}files{{=}}Myimage.jpg. I'll add that to the documentation. Certes (talk) 13:31, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Certes, impressively quick work :) Will give it a go. --Cactus.man ✍ 16:09, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
@Certes: A quick query: using a custom image works brilliantly, and it places it inside a thumbnail "box" as expected, but there's no caption. Is there any way to add a bespoke caption for custom images too? Thanks. --Cactus.man ✍ 19:19, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: Yes, though the coding gets a bit intricate. See this demo. Certes (talk) 19:48, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

@Certes:, I've been working through the alternative markup you developed for customising the random slideshow templates for selecting paragraph numbers, custom images and image captions, and things appear to be working pretty well. The only issue I have found is in trying to incorporate internal wikilinks in the custom captions. I've been following the 'Two Banana' flavour for the coding using the caption text as the value of the fileargs parameter. The following code works fine: 

    {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow| paragraphs=1-3| files=1| more=
        | Dundee{{!}}files{{=}}The Dundee Law - geograph.org.uk - 63200 (lighter ground).jpg{{!}}fileargs{{=}}The Dundee Law
    }}

But, when I try introducing a wikilink for "Dundee Law" using square brackets, it breaks with an error : Lua error: Unmatched close-bracket at pattern character 22.

Per the code below: 

    {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow| paragraphs=1-3| files=1| more=
        | Dundee{{!}}files{{=}}The Dundee Law - geograph.org.uk - 63200 (lighter ground).jpg{{!}}fileargs{{=}}The [[Dundee Law]]
    }}

Do the square brackets for the link need to be escaped in some way, or is there a simple fix for this? Or have I made another embarrassing Schoolboy error? Any help in these troubled times would be appreciated. I hope you can devote some attention to this, I know it's disheartening when you get continually bad-mouthed as I see has happened again in your case at the recent Proposal_to_delete_Portal_space. Keep up the good work, some of us do appreciate it. --Cactus.man ✍ 12:01, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your support. To be honest I only really read the first insult from each editor; I think further attacks say more about them than about me.
[[article]] and [[article|text]] get interpreted before reaching the caption. Like the pipe, they need to be escaped twice: {{((}}!(({{))}}article{{((}}!)){{))}} and {{((}}!(({{))}}article{{((}}!{{))}}text{{((}}!)){{))}}. See {{!((}} for the templates involved. I wonder if we should produce simpler templates for these: something like {{escaped link|article|text}}. Example written out in full:

An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (Malus spp., among them the domestic or orchard apple; Malus domestica). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus Malus. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, is still found. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Eurasia and were introduced to North America by European colonists. Apples have religious and mythological significance in many cultures, including Norse, Greek, and European Christian tradition. (Full article...)

@Certes: WOW! Great stuff, but yes, the coding is becoming very complex. Once I've got my head around the complexity and am comfortable using it, I'll start to introduce it.The only lurking problem I can foresee is that it's in danger of becoming a new rationale for deletion: (Delete overly complex code, likely to discourage possible maintainers from volunteering, leading to future maintenance problems and early abandonment. Yet further evidence that the Portalista's treat Portals as a personal play ground, likely to ultimately lead to another sea of abandoned, crud). God knows, it's likely to make it's way "magically" into WP:POG as a requirement that code should be simple vanilla wiki markup! So I think your suggestion of producing a simpler template is a sound idea. --Cactus.man ✍ 21:43, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: Good points. I've just knocked together {{Doubly escaped wikilink}}, which simplifies the above example to (edit to see source):

An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (Malus spp., among them the domestic or orchard apple; Malus domestica). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus Malus. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, is still found. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Eurasia and were introduced to North America by European colonists. Apples have religious and mythological significance in many cultures, including Norse, Greek, and European Christian tradition. (Full article...)

– Certes (talk) 22:17, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

@Certes: Thanks for this, makes life a lot simpler I think.
Just FYI I amended the template to include a missing parameter 2 of "Yellow fruit" in the example given in Template:Doubly_escaped_wikilink/doc. I think I've understood correctly and the example should read:
{{Doubly escaped wikilink|Banana|Yellow fruit}} → {{!((}}Banana{{!}}Yellow fruit{{!))}} ([[Banana|Yellow fruit]])
Perhaps you should cast an eye over it to make sure It's correct. Thanks --Cactus.man ✍ 22:59, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:03, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Working like Hell to fix a page with two blocking and rewriting a mess...

I am hoping that you may grant a fully protected status - at least until I can notify you (or some other admin) of completion.

There is a page titled, “List of English words of Irish origin" that I have been trying to correct - I am a *native* Irish language speaker and teacher. I have been trying to correct many profound mistakes made by others who have relied on dictionaries from a foreign language (the Oxford English Dictionary primarily) rather what I am using - the two primary Irish language dictionaries for the last 80 years.

They seem quite dedicated to the notion that borrowing from sources all over the internet (sometimes referencing, sometimes not) provides suitable etymology - without understanding that word origins and usage arise not simply from someone else's links to full language origins (in this case, Indo-European roots), but to their history and that of the actual spoken/written language, the parent culture, the ways by which these words appeared in other languages (in this case, English), the usage in songs and poetry (because some words take new meanings there), and the means by which new words have formed.

Unfortunately, one person (Robbie SWE) blocked me without warning, and other (Eirikr) has consistently made changes AWAY from actual Irish dictionaries and away from known usage in my own country (he is a native English speaker with no utility in Irish).

I don't want this to become a war, but I have had "talk" communications while still having the work wrongly corrected.

I have tried to communicate, and finally wrote the following. Please feel free to examine what I wrote. I admit I am becoming frustrated, and I have endeavored to not get too personal ... but after having whole pages of work vandalized ... it's getting REALLY difficult not to blow up.

Hello,


So, the problems you and "Robbie" are creating is that you neither have any of the culture, understand the history, or any facility with the language to understand what you are trying to do with these Irish-derived words. Take for example your statement that you know, "... a smidgen of Ulster-dialect Irish." Well, the fact is very clear that you have 'no' Irish beyond having picked up a phrase or two. The most *basic* understanding of the language would tell you that the adjectives come AFTER the noun, as with MANY other languages. The result is not "squeak bright" as you stated, but rather "bright squeak". Basal-level understanding of European history would tell you why this is important; it is not merely that giggles from young children actually are *bright squeaks*, but there is a very long tradition throughout Europe with using "mice" much like a simile for "children". This likely originates from the incident in Hamelin, Germany (yes - the Pied Piper was a real occurrence, on St. John's day in 1284). Since that time, you have "Nibble, nibble like a mouse. Who is nibbling at my house?" from Hansel and Gretel, and your own American production of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" should take you back to the Child Catcher scene where Sir Robert Helpmann referred to the "little children" as mice.


All of that said, what neither you or "Robbie" seem to understand is that WE (the Irish) know where these terms came from, largely in part because ... well, it's our language, it's our culture, it's our history, and therefore it's our subtleties that neither of you would understand (beyond which, many of these terms originated quite recently - as in within living memory ... like my own). An example is when you ask, "Why would an English term be coined as a compound of Irish words?" Well - it's NOT an English term! It's an Irish term used by Irish people, including those living all throughout the British Isles and those immigrants to Canada, American, and Australia. MANY Irish words were picked up - and often altered by the unknowing - and used as slang. For example, "Can you dig it?" "Dig", as in to understand, appeared during the 1960s in the Civil Rights Movement, when hippies came to Derry/Londonderry to protest the British occupation (guess when the "troubles" suddenly ramped up?). In Ireland we still say, "Do ya'/can ya' tig?" or even "Do ya'/can ya' dig" or even (rarely) "do ya'/ can ya' twig?"


Why? Well, because one of the first things you learn when exploring any language, including Irish, is the word "understand", as in "Do you understand me?" and "I'm sorry. I don't understand."


Tuigim - I understand.

Tuigeann tú - You understand.

An dtuigeann tú? - Do you understand?


Can you dig it? (Which, by the way, first appears as the question in "Grazing In The Grass" by The Friends Of Distinction).


The somewhat Anglicized version ((Do ya' t(d)ig) <-- the letter is often pronounced more as an English 'd') has been in use at least since Cromwell (1599-1658). These things are well known amongst even my elementary students in the Gaeltacht (Irish speaking communities) and you don't because you weren't alive like I was to see it, to read about it in Time Magazine, and to enjoy the hippie culture as it moved out over the Atlantic, stirring up trouble everywhere.


Now, it had already appeared within the Black community in the US by the turn of the 20th century. Why? Because the Irish and African-Americans were working together for years, starting in the middle of the 1800s, in coal mines and railroads (hence, the origin of many dozens of Irish last names in the Black community). Irish terms used often mixed with English as slang found its way into the Black community vernacular.



One of the problems I've seen all over this page is complete lack of understanding regarding how Irish is pronounced (the letters are not all used the same as they are in English and this has caused many misunderstandings):


Starting with the consonants:


Broad consonants are pronounced with a “-w” off-glide, and slender consonants are pronounced with a “-y” off-glide. Broad consonants are always written with the letters a, o, or u next to them. Slender consonants are always written with the letters i or e next to them.


bh (broad) = w

bh (slender) = v

ch (broad) = ch as in German “Bach”, Scottish “loch”

ch (slender) = ch as in German “ich”, or h

dh (broad) = gh as the g in Spanish “abogado” or Greek “avgolemono” (this is the voiced equivalent of the “ch” in “Bach”); usually silent except at beginning of words; see a textbook on this!

dh (slender) = y

fh (broad) = silent

fh (slender) = silent

gh (broad) = same as broad dh

gh (slender) = y

mh (broad) = w

mh (slender) = v

ph (broad) = fw

ph (slender) = fy

sh (broad) = h

sh (slender) = h

th (broad) = h

th (slender) = h


Irish also has another set of consonant combinations at the beginning of words that result from an initial mutation called eclipsis. These are pronounced as follows (with broad and slender versions in each case):


mb = m as in “na mban” (nuh mahn)

gc = g as in “i gcarr” (uh gawr)

nd = n as in “i ndán” (uh nawn)

bhf = w as in “an bhfuil” or v as in “a bhfile” (uh will)

ng = ng as in “i ngairdín” (ng as in English “king”) (uhNGAHR-jeen)

bp = b as in “na bplátaí” (nuh BLAW-tee)

dt = d as in “i dteach” (uh dyakh)

In every case of eclipsis, all you do is pronounce the first consonant and ignore the second, except for “ng”, which is pronounced together as the “ng” in “thing”.


The long vowels are:

í as in "sí" pronounced “shee”

é as in "sé" pronounced “shay”

ú as in "tú" pronounced “too”

ó as in "bó" pronounced “boe”

á as in "tá" pronounced “taw”


ae as in "lae" pronounced “lay”

eo as in "ceol" (music) pronounced “key-ohl” (to rhyme with “hole”)

ao as in "lao" pronounced either “lay” or “lee”, depending on dialect


The short vowels are:


i as in "in" pronounced “in” (as in English)

e as in "te" pronounced “teh” (more about the “t” sound below!)

u as in "rud" pronounced “rud” (like the u in Enlgish “put”)

o as in "cos" pronounced “cos” (o as in German “Gott”, or in English “goat” said without rounding the lips)

a as in "mac" pronounced “mahk” (like the a in “father”)

ea as in "bean" pronounced “ban” (like the a in “cat”)


Short vowels differ from long vowels in one important respect. They are given their full pronunciation ONLY in the first syllable of a word. In all other syllables, they are all reduced to the neutral “uh” sound of English “but”. The same thing happens in English, where “Benjamin” is pronounced “BEN-juh-muhn”. Thus the Irish word for Irish, “éireannach”, is pronounced “AY-ruh-nuhkh”.


There are two important diphthongs that you should recognize, both written using a combination of vowels and consonants:


The “ow” diphthong, as in “ow, I stubbed my toe”:


abha as in abhann pronounced “own” (to rhyme with “clown”)

amha as in samhradh pronounced “sow-ruh” (like a female pig)

...and the “eye” diphthong:


agha as in aghaidh pronounced “eye”

adh as in Tadhg pronounced “tiger without the -er”



THIS is why I inserted links that provide pronunciation in all three major dialects to all words and terms used - directly to the online system that currently represents the Irish standard employed by the government and private corporations seeking to fulfill Irish language needs. Without understanding how the words are written, and therefore pronounced, it becomes a challenge "hearing" how words like the portmanteau, "giggle" are supposed to work.


THAT brings up another salient point; the portmanteau.


It was the famed Irish author, Lewis Carroll (he was of an Irish family (Ó Cearbhaill) though born in Cheshire) who first put the word "portmanteau" to use the way we most typically employ it today (not referencing large suitcases), as words that have been made by blending two words together. Think 'brunch' (breakfast and lunch), 'smog' (smoke and fog) and 'spork' (spoon and fork). This approach to making 'fanciful' words was not new, though quite common amongst both English and Irish authors at the time. Carroll himself created many, such as "vorpal" (as in a terrible sharp and unbreakable sword) and "chortle" (somewhere between a chuckle and a laugh). Another to do this often was the great British author, Lord Byron, who appears to be the first to insert a wonderful portmanteau into his work, "The Siege of Corinth" - the word "giggle", a term that was literally in use all over Great Britain as this was the time of two Irish rebellions and the Acts of Union that resulted in more of the Irish diaspora into the U.K. and abroad.


Now, you really put your foot into it with this one...


"Irish gíog may well share the same Germanic root seen in German Geige, Icelandic and Old Norse gígja, and English gig. With the Old Norse term gígja, we have attestations there going back to at least the 1200s. Alternatively, the Irish might share the same Germanic root as we see in Dutch giechelen (“to giggle”), explained here in Dutch as deriving from frequentative suffix -elen (cognate with English -le) + an onomatopoeic root gīg-, which the Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands analyzes as cognate with Dutch verb hijgen (“to gasp, to pant”) and late Old High German giga (“fiddle”). It's worth noting that a poorly played fiddle emits squeaks, creeks, and similar sounds.


Our etymology currently given at Geige traces this back through Proto-Germanic all the way to PIE. It does appear that there is a Germanic root at work here, shared across multiple branches of modern Germanic languages. While an early Irish → Norse borrowing would be feasible, and such a Norse term might well have made it into English, an Irish → Proto-Germanic borrowing would require time travel."


"Our etymology..."


OUR etymology...?


Who is the WE in your OUR???


You are not doing the original research in Irish ethnology, history, archaeology, anthropology, philology nor etymology.


So, to update your understanding of world history; Rome fell twice. The first time it fell in a single day in the Battle of the Allia (c. 387 BC) between the Senones – a Gallic tribe led by Brennus and the Roman Republic. From the 5th century B.C. forward, the people the Greeks called "Keltoi" (People of the Forest - in reference to those tribes north of the Alps - Germany, Austria and the Scandinavian countries) and those the Romans called the Galli (Gauls) in today’s France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg).


"...to at least the 1200s"


Are you serious? Do you not understand why there are variants on the bag-pipes found all the way out to Turkey? It was all Celtic/Gallic lands, and so was the language - in dozens of dialects kept interconvertible by the seanchaidhthe wandering from village to village, county to county, and country to country. When two or more met on the roads, great celebrations went up with mummers dancing and story-telling for a week or more as news, lore, and dialectical variants were shared - as it does still today. The advent of advanced printing of school books and modern media has entrenched the dialects as reliance on seanchaidhthe has all but disappeared, favoring now only the storytelling that persists in rural (and some urban) public houses for family entertainment.


Do you know that Rome fell to the Visigoths in 410 AD? Guess who they were? The descendants of the La Tène culture, who were the descendants of the Hallstatt culture who were one of the most successful and wealthy Celtic groups for centuries to follow. Their influence completely dominated German and the low land countries. The languages some want to call "Germanic" are the descendants of the same early Indo-European languages that ultimate gave rise to things like Welsh and Breton (the French peninsula of Brittany), but developed in isolation due to Caesar and so somewhat Latinized with Asian influence due to Atilla. After that, they continued to evolve on their own, separate from what became the Celtic languages in the British isles toay


"Norse borrowing"?


Okay. So you know the name, "Erik Thorvaldsson" ( c. 950 – c. 1003)? He was also known as Erik the Red. A Norse explorer, right? He had one son of particular note, Leif Erikson. Right?


Erik Thorvalsson carried the gene of haplogroup R1b-L21, or its subclade R1b-M222, typical of northwestern Ireland and Scotland (the so-called lineage of Niall of the Nine Hostages in Ulster). It is considered almost certain that native Irish and Scottish Celts were were a part of the broader "Viking" community of southwest Norway, and that they increased the frequency of red hair there.


  • But beyond all of that...


Okay, you and this guy Robbie are trying to rely largely upon English dictionaries, apparently totally unaware this is exactly like trying to rely on Iranian scholars writing a dictionary in Farsi about slang terms originally from Hebrew and Yiddish (a dialect of German).


I mean - what?


I put in definitions, examples of use and discussions of origins from IRISH dictionaries ... IRISH! You and "Robbie" want to change that work back to work from ENGLISH dictionaries - entirely different languages. What's worse, the references posted are from a country that openly espoused and practiced genocide on the Irish people for a few hundred years. Men in Parliament were openly speaking with satisfaction that a million people died during the Great Starvation. <--- Yes, that's correct. It's not "The Potato Famine", that's an English fabrication. It was calculated starvation. Ireland was the "Garden of Europe" at the time and grew much more than potatoes, but English landlords refused other vegetables for sale (SALE) to the Irish, directed to sell them in Scotland, Wales, England and abroad. If a landholder determined that other vegetables were taken into Irish homes, the starving would be executed as thieves.


This continues amongst the British establishment still today. Need evidence? Go look for an interview with the great 80s rocker, Rod Stewart, and listen to his story of what happened when he was going to do a BBC live broadcast concert - and wanted to sing "Grace" (a gorgeous ballad from Ireland about a signatory of the Irish Proclamation (Declaration of Independence) who was executed at Kilmainham Gaol (jail). Listen to *why* they wouldn't let him sing that amazing love song.


In Ireland, we are *all* quite aware that great works such as the OED were composed by authors going well out of their way to remain willfully ignorant of most Irish word origins (unknown, slang, etc.). They would *never* actually pick up the phone (or before, write letters) to native speakers of Irish working at Trinity College in Dublin, or the National University of Ireland in Galway. The first Oxford English Dictionary was written in 1841.


What was happening at that time?


In Ulster, there were repeated outbreaks of sectarian violence, such as the riot at Dolly's Brae, between Catholics and the nascent Orange Order. Elsewhere, tensions between the rapidly growing rural population on one side and their landlords and the state on the other, gave rise to much agrarian violence and social unrest. Secret peasant societies such as the Whiteboys and the Ribbonmen used sabotage and violence to intimidate landlords into better treatment of their tenants. The most sustained outbreak of violence was the Tithe War of the 1830s, over the obligation of the mostly Catholic peasantry to pay tithes to the Protestant Church of Ireland. The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) was set up to police rural areas in response to this violence. The Great Starvation ran from 1845–1851, in which about one million people died and another million emigrated. In the new Whig government (from 1846), Charles Trevelyan became Assistant Secretary to the Treasury and it was the policies of his party that left the rural population entirely without food, dependent upon handouts. Some members of the Repeal Association, called the Young Irelanders, formed the Irish Confederation, and tried to launch a rebellion against British rule in 1848. This coincided with the worst years of the famine and was contained by British military action.


Okay ... so, like I said ... what you and "Robbie" are doing is exactly like looking for accurate information regarding the origins and usage of Yiddish by Jews in Farsi dictionaries.


And you actually think that's best. BEST! That the information contained with the oldest and most important Irish dictionaries (IRISH) just somehow doesn't measure up to ... understanding the Irish language.?!?!?!


What?


Now, you can play games with words like "Boycott", which was coined after IRISH tenants followed Parnell’s suggested code of conduct and effectively ostracized a British estate manager, Charles Cunningham Boycott, during the Irish land agitation of 1880.


Cool - it's not an "Irish" word, but it was coined in Ireland by the Irish. Okay? That's a game we don't need to play.


Please - you don't know the history, you don't know the literature, you don't know the culture, you don't know how the dialects actually relate you don't know how those actually relate to Gaelic or Manx or Welsh or Breton (I mean in a practical sense - not whether or not those languages arise from a PIE root), you don't know the songs and poetry (or how those work in Irish - because there's no direct translations (as transliterations), you don't know the archaeology, you don't know the anthropology...


...and the work you are trying to base everything off of is not only NOT your own but gleaned from an institutional culture that still today does not recognize the Irish as equal citizens of this earth.



So, PLEASE, let me finish working on the page. I am still learning how to properly set up references and links ... but you genuinely have no business jumping in and changing anything. You just simply do not know enough about what you are trying to write about, and your information is not entirely correct for the worst reasons.



    • I will pass this along to the administrators as well to ensure they are aware of the situation, including the antics of "Robbie" and his behavior.



Thank you, sincerely, for your assistance with this ongoing matter.


J. Patrick Malone MS/MED, CVT, LAT-G Department of Defense - EA 090-3532-4779 (JP) 207-605-6129 (US)

Hello JPatrickMalone,
Thanks for the message you left. It was a little bit hard to follow, but what you are describing is essentially a content dispute. Administrators are not here to adjudicate on content disputes. I am reluctant to protect this page, because it has not yet reached a disruptive level of edit warring, and inevitably one party or the other will feel aggrieved because the page has been protected on the "Wrong Version" (Note: Tongue-in-cheek humour, essay suggestions not to be taken seriously). Wikipedia works on a collaboration and consensus basis - see WP:Consensus. I urge you to discuss your proposed changes with those who object to them on the article Talk Page to try to reach an agreeable consensus. You may find the contents at Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle helpful. Bear in mind that repeated edit warring may lead to you being blocked from editing under the 3 revert rule policy. --Cactus.man ✍ 11:58, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
Cheers, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 00:47, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2021).

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  • Phase 2 of the 2021 RfA review has commenced which will discuss potential solutions to address the 8 issues found in Phase 1. Proposed solutions that achieve consensus will be implemented and you may propose solutions till 07 November 2021.

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Administrators' newsletter – December 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2021).

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Administrators' newsletter – January 2022

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How we will see unregistered users

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Nomination for deletion of Template:Modern portal

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Administrators' newsletter – February 2022

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:46, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2022

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  • Access to Special:RevisionDelete has been expanded to include users who have the deletelogentry and deletedhistory rights. This means that those in the Researcher user group and Checkusers who are not administrators can now access Special:RevisionDelete. The users able to view the special page after this change are the 3 users in the Researcher group, as there are currently no checkusers who are not already administrators. (T301928)
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New administrator activity requirement

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:33, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Seventeenth anniversary on Wikipedia!

Administrators' newsletter – June 2022

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  • Administrators using the mobile web interface can now access Special:Block directly from user pages. (T307341)
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