User talk:Ish ishwar/2008talkpage

2008 archived talk page

Navajo

Hi Ish,

I've added some details to Navajo phonology. Since I'm working off of one of McDonough's older series of papers (UCLA WPP w Ladefoged), you might want to verify that it isn't contradicted in her newer work. kwami (talk) 23:38, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Ok.

One thing that I see right off is that we might want to have a footnote explaining how McDonough's ideas about Navajo morphology differ from other analyses (like Jim Kari, Young & Morgan, etc.). – ishwar  (speak) 06:28, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

ISO 639-5

Hi Ish, ISO 639-5 codes for language groups/families are out. Maybe you could re do the map Image:Langs_N.Amer.png with them. Instead of the numbers maybe the codes could be put directly into the map. With the codes the map would be easier to use in other language wikis. TalkChat (talk) 19:10, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi.

I'm not so up on this, but as I understand it these computer codes are only for living languages. Some of the languages on that map have been extinct for a while. So, I'm pretty sure that they do not and will not ever have codes. If you (or anyone else) wants to replace the living families with numbers, you can feel free to do so. I, unfortunately, do not have much time these days for mapmaking, and since this relabeling of an existing map is fairly trivial, I'm be more inclined to create a total new map (next would be a map of the New Mexico Pueblo communities). – ishwar  (speak) 06:35, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Tlingit map

Yo; see 'twas you made this, and noted the "to do" and other comments; I'd dropped by concerning the Inland Tlingit, aka the Taku River Tlingit (not to be confused with the Taku people), which is composed of the Aa Dlein and Deis Lein Kwaans; I'd say basically it doesn't matter if their territorial claims overlap with those of the neighbouring Athapaskan peoples; claim-areas on other FN/NA pages show the full extent of range/claim....I haven't look at hte TRTFN website as re their particular claim, and I'm unclear on where in the Yukon the Inland Tlinkit (as it tends to be spelled in the YT) claim or live. But re these lists copied from the info section of the image page, here's a few comments:

The Tlingit peoples are surrounded by mostly Athabaskan speakers.

• Ahtna, Southern Tutchone, Tagish, Tahltan (proper), and Tsetsaut are Athabaskan (of the Na-Dene family).
  • Tsetsaut is extinct and it's debatable if the Tsetsaut ever "had territory" as they were a guest-people of the Nisga'a, a "settled slave race"; the territory shown is now part of the Nisga'a Lisims. Kaskas are also in the same area as the Tahltan, or rather would be on the map as well.
• Eyak, a northern neighbor, is a Na-Dene language (although not Athabaskan).
• Nass-Gitksan is a Tsimshian language (which is not related to the Na-Dene family).
  • The Gitxsan language and Nisga'a language are now considered separate; I know they're closely related but in BC-speak they're spoken of as different languages. Your map also seems to confuse the Nass and Skeena Rivers; Wet'su-wet'en should be on the map also....
• Haida, who shares an island with Tlingit speakers, is a language isolate, unrelated to Na-Dene or Tsimshian families.
  • Unless it's in Na-Dene of course....(see next)

Tlingit itself is Na-Dene, related to Eyak and the Athabaskan languages.

Only very distantly related, and FWIK Na-Dene is still largely conjectural.

to do

• • show Inland Tlingit (see de Laguna 1991 and ANLC maps)
    • • I'd say the definitive would be the land claim assertion of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation; I'll try and find it online, it's probably out there somewhere.
  • label rivers and major lakes
    • • Atlin Lake, Tagish Lake, Teslin Lake, Taku-Nakina/Inklin Rivers aren't well-portrayed, but I know you know that.
  • label major villages and towns
    • Yakutat, Hoonah, Haines, Juneau, Sitka, Angoon, Wrangell, Kake, Klawock, Ketchikan
      • Add Atlin for sure, Teslin's a lot smaller and not sure about Carcross; there'sx a relatively large Tlinkit presence even in Whitehorse, I think; not sure if they assert claims in that area.Skookum1 (talk) 00:17, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Yuri language (Amazon)

Hi Ish, I was just working on Yuri language (New Guinea) and I thought to add a stub for Yuri language (Amazon). But I can't identify what language is intended by your disambiguations in June 2007. I don't think you can mean Yurutí language (ethnologue), because this is not extinct, and you've worked a lot on this page too (back in 2005-2006). Can you give me an ISO code or some other info? -- Ngio (talk) 20:55, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

See Ticuna-Yuri languages. Yuri doesn't seem to appear in Ethnologue. kwami (talk) 21:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Cheers, thanks. I'll hit the books. -- Ngio (talk) 21:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Help concerning Na-Dene maps requested

Hello! I've just found out you are the creater of the map of the distribution of Na-Dene languages. I'm sure you have a lot of other things to do, but when you have the time and are in the mood, and if you have the necessary sources, of course, could you possibly update the map or create another one one that would distinguish current distributions from pre-contact distributions? Moreover, although Haida is now considered unrelated (or not demonstrably related), it should be included in that map, perhaps, because it was part of the original hypothesis of Sapir. Maybe, the language groups could be in different colours (or, at least, Haida could be in different colour if one wishes to stress its exclusion). Anyway, these are merely suggestions and I will appreciate any help of any sort. :) I would do this myself, if I knew how and if I had the sources of information...by the way what software did you use to create the Na-Dene map? --Pet'usek ^{[petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom]} 10:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

hi.

yes, I dont have time to do any map stuff these days. There arent any comprehensive maps for current distribution of Athabascan languages. I guess you could start with maps of reservations, but that would be misleading since some languages are only spoken by a few speakers. Yes, Haida should be added, but with some indication of uncertain status. I used GIMP to create the maps: I scanned in the originals and did some tracing of the original maps, manipulating of boundaries, changing colors, etc. It didnt know how to use GIMP either, but I slowly taught myself. It took a long time to finish it. I'd send you my source file, but I lost that in a computer crash earlier this year. So, somebody will have to start over. – ishwar  (speak) 03:53, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Taos phonology

I corrected your links to Wiktionary using templates instead of http addresses. Now they look nicer and, as an additional benefit, disk space is saved. Neko85 (talk) 20:10, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Micmac

Hi Ish,

Do you have any preferences on whether we should spell it Míkmaq, Mi'kmaq, or Micmac? A bunch of us want to move it to the official orthography, but Codex wants to keep it at Mi'kmaq. The discussion is at Míkmaq language (which is currently under its official spelling, though it might get moved back, but this affects several other articles). kwami (talk) 23:52, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Linguist List is attempting to contact user:Ishwar

Hello Ishwar, The Linguist List is working on an NSF-funded project that acts as a clearinghouse for geolinguistic data. We have made use of some of the media that you have released under open licenses. We would like to credit you as much as you prefer. Please contact either evelyn or brandon (at) org.lingusitlits (please spellcheck and verify) if you would like to discuss this further. Thanks, Brandon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.76.148.209 (talk) 20:49, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Na-Dene Spelling Conventions

Hello! Please, join our discussion on the spelling of "Na-Dene" on the Na-Dene languages talk page. Thank you! --Pet'usek ^{[petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom]} 11:01, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Moosehide

I was just wondering why it redirects to Hän language. I came across it, in Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation, as a place name. Cheers. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 16:37, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi. The southern band of the Han was relocated to Dawson and Moosehide (Village). And Ferdinand Schitter called them Moosehide Indians in 1910. Thus, the redirect. Obviously, the article on Han people (and language) is rather lacking in detail.... – ishwar  (speak) 18:59, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Here's a page with some info: www.dawnone.com/moose.html. – ishwar  (speak) 19:01, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Google link: maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&rls=en&q=moosehide%2C%20yukon&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wl

Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 20:19, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Heterorganic affricates

I was always under the impression that affricates were always homorganic. What do McDonough & Ladefoged 1993 and Hoijer & Opler 1938 say? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

McD & L say that they are affricates, which McDonough repeats in her 2003 book on the Navajo sound system. Hoijer doesnt call them affricates but he has written that they are similar. He usually calls it "velar frication" or something like that. H & O 1938 is online: etext.virginia.edu/apache/HoiOrt1.jpg (the whole book is online although it's not scanned but rather converted to text [with lots of typos, I must add!]). That's phonetics.   

Phonologically, it has to be an affricate if you consider Navajo stems to have CV(:)(C) syllable structure. Otherwise, /tx/ would be the only complex onset in the language, which is not a very elegant analysis. Even if it was a cluster phonetically, one may still want to treat them as a single unit (you see arguments about this in African languages with things like /ps/). (But. Theres an issue with a /x/ that can be added to many words to create negative expression, such as between excrement vs shit. Some call this just an emphatic pronunciation (like English vowel lengthening: a looooong time), but one person has called it an infix — treating it more like a phoneme and thus a cluster. What are you gonna do about this? Anyway, I havent written about this on the Nav phono page yet..)

Also there is never a contrast between a /tx/ cluster and a /tx/ affricate. Virtually the only place where clusters appear is at the stem (the rightmost segment is the stem-initial consonant), and there is never a combination of stop + stem-initial /x/.

Affricates are almost always homorganic. Heterorganic ones are rare. Is this the answer you are looking for? – ishwar  (speak) 05:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

The answer I was looking for was one where I'm right and you're wrong. I'll see if I can't find sources talking more about Heterorganic affricates. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

German /pf/ is not homorganic (it starts off bilabio-dental, but then the lower lip retracts slightly), but is considered an affricate. kwami (talk) 20:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh but it's close enough. It uses the same articulators. [tʃ] is arguably not homorganic for certain speakers either. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:39, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Hadza [tʎ] is considered an affricate by Ladefoged, as is Wari’ [tʙ]. In both cases, there are no other consonant clusters, except for conventional affricates and prenasalized stops in the case of Hadza, which might make analysis easier. kwami (talk) 07:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, if you find something about affricates being only homorganic, then let me know. I learn new things everyday.

But, this brings up an interesting point about defining affricates. They may often be defined according to phonological criteria instead of any consideration of their phonetics.

[tʙ] is so weird and rare (it's only 2 langs, right?), so what can anyone say about it? It's almost like they made it up for fun. It might be stretching to call it a phonetic affricate since it's closure > trill which differs from closure > frication/fricationless continuant. What kind of difference could there be between [tʙ] affricate and [tʙ] sequence? – ishwar  (speak) 00:03, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Wari' has no C clustres, and has no [ʙ]. If this were a cluster of independent consonants, it would have to be /tr/ or /tp/, which would also be really weird. The argument for it being a single segment, therefore, is stronger than the agument for j and ch being segments in English.

I have seen affricates defined as homorganic. However, I don't know if that's official, or only a guideline so that students don't mistake English /ks/ for an affricate. kwami (talk) 01:19, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I know I've removed "affricate" /ks/ from a number of articles with the summary "affricates are homorganic." If there are heterorganic affricates possible, then I was being a jerk. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:25, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

The main definition of 'affricate' I've seen is a contour segment that shifts between plosive and fricative, though sometimes a trilled fricative. The key is segment. That may not be any easier to define than whether a language has diphthongs or vowel sequences. Being homorganic helps decide the issue, because clusters are seldom constrained to be homorganic. kwami (talk) 20:47, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Is there a definitive text on affricates? SOWL maybe? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:25, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, SOWL has very little: only a page of text in the chapter on Stops, plus charts of Mandarin & Chipewyan affrics and mention of affrics in inventories covered elsewhere, or covered under laterals etc. (Chipewyan's neat for its dental affrics.) The first two paragraphs cover the topic in general, and I can reproduce them here:

In almost every case, as a stop is released the articulators will pass briefly through a position in which the constriction is narrow enough that it will cause turbulence in the air at the constriction site. This transitory friction is usually considered a part of the release burst of the stop. Affricates are stops in which the release of the constriction is modified in such a way as to produce a more prolonged period of frication after the release. As with many of the types of sounds we have discussed, the class of affricates has no sharp boundaries. Affricates are an intermediate category between simple stops an d a sequence of a stop and a fricative. It is not always easy to say how much frication should be regarded as an automatic property of a release; some places of articulation seem to be often accompanied by considerable frication (see chapter 2). At the other extreme, a combination of a stop and a fricative that both happen to have the same place of articulation do not necessarily form an affricate. Phonological considerations mush play a part in any decision as to whether a stop and a following homorganic fricative is to be regarded as an affricate which is a single unit, or as two segments (or two timing slots), forming a sequence of a stop and a fricative.

   Affricate releases may involve only a slight widening of the articulatory constriction of the stop, so that stop and fricative components have identical place of articulation. Some affricates, however, involve asmall forward or backward adjustment of the active articulator position. [Gives example of German /pf/.]

— SOWL, p 90

textbooks

Hi, I noticed on your front page you have a link to a list of textbooks you recommend for phonetics...I've always been interested in language (in fact I've been working on some wikipedia resources, like these: commons:User:Robbiemuffin#English Grammar Graphics). Well, from what I've read I am actually most interested in linguistic typology. Can you suggest a good introductory textbook with a bias towards that? Thank you :) — robbiemuffin ^{page talk} 22:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

hi.

i guess youre looking at syntactic or morphological typology? If "yes", i can recommend a few:

• Comrie, Bernard. (1981). Language universals and linguistic typology: Syntax and morphology (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [theres a later edition]
• Mallinson, Graham; & Blake, Barry J. (1981). Language typology: Cross-linguistic studies in syntax. Amsterdam: North-Holland Pub. Co. [this is unfortunately outofprint]

There is also this, which i havent looked at but i'm sure it's good:

• Croft, William. (1990). Typology and universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

As for reference works, i suggest looking at this 3-book set and classic 4-book set:

• Shopen, Timothy. (1985). Language typology and syntactic description (Vols. 1-3). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [i think theres a 2nd edition but i havent seen it ; the volumes are "Clause structure", "Complex constructions", & "Grammatical categories and the lexicon"]
• Greenberg, Joseph H.; Ferguson, Charles A.; & Moravcsik, Edith A. (1978). Universals of human language (Vols. 1-4). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. [the volumes are "Method & theory", "Phonology", "Word structure", and "Syntax"]

See also www.linguistic-typology.org/SYLLAB.HTM for 3 syllabuses (or syllabi, if you prefer). The article "Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and points of view" mentioned on that page is a particularly important paper. The Comrie 1981 and Mallinson & Blake 1981 books assume a linguistics student audience which has already taken courses in general linguistics and syntax. I dont know your background, but if you need an intro to syntax which is more typological in nature, then I suggest:

• Van Valin, Robert D. (2001). An introduction to syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Another cool book with lots of info:

• Payne, Thomas E. (1997). Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Finally you could just see what type of structures occur in North American languages (seeing as you are from North America). North America is so diverse linguisticly that you could teach a typology class only using data from that continent. This book has lots of data:

• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Is this what you wanted to know? – ishwar  (speak) 05:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Many of these have reviews available from JSTOR. If you dont have access I can email some of them to you. – ishwar  (speak) 05:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a hella write up I don't deserve, thank you. I was kinda hoping I could get by with the encyclopedic entries here for general background information.

As far as North American, yes that is right, I am still on this side of the pond :) but the only exposure I have had to native american language was an otherwise nice Mayan who consistantly called me "boy". :) Thanks again — robbiemuffin ^{page talk} 14:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, the article on linguistic typology doesnt have much there, so I think that you really would need to read a book for a proper introduction. For example, it doesnt talk about topics in the typology of phonologies. Some topics that you can start with are:

• learning about word order (including the ordering of Subj, Verb, & Obj and the ordering of head & dependents)
• learning about ergativity
• learning about head-marking vs dependent-marking
• learning about the syntactic properties of Subjects and Objects (nothing here on wikipedia about this really)
• learning about the most common phonological sounds
• learning about implications (for example, if a language has ejective consonants, it is expected to have non-ejective consonants & we would never expect a language to have only ejective consonants and no non-ejectives)

But, it really depends on what you are interested in. For example, if you wanted to see what type of grammatical number systems were found, you could just read a book on that.

I mention the American langs because in a typical intro to typology the student is necessarily exposed to a large variety of langs. There are only a limited number of linguistic structures found in Europe so one needs to look at minority languages from elsewhere (that you may never have heard of before). North America has lots of interesting stuff (some of it hardly found on other continents).

I've written a short (and incomplete) bit on the various types of reduplication patterns, which you may find interesting: Reduplication: Form.

Anway, have fun! – ishwar  (speak) 20:04, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Navajo example

Hello, I'm busy translating parts of the Navajo language article for the French Wikipedia, begun but left unfinished by another contributor, and I'm stuck with the following example :

a si- stative prefix in position 7 as in shishʼaah "I'm in the act of placing a SRO" in dah shishʼaah "I'm in the act of placing a SRO up" (dah "up")

for I'm not sure to understand what a SRO is supposed to mean. Most probably it is the Solid Roundish Object that is referred to later in the article, but the abbreviation also has separate references in English (previously unknown to me, I must say). May you confirm that "Solid Roundish Object" is the intended meaning ? Thanks in advance, Bertrand Bellet (talk) 21:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

hello.

Yes, that is right: SRO = solid roundish object. So, shishʼaah = "I'm in the act of placing a solid roundish object (like a wallet, a book, a hat, a rock, a balloon, a ring, a cake, etc.) in position". In other words "I'm putting/setting a solid roundish object [in some location]". The dah indicates that the location is above the surface of the ground. So, dah shishʼaah = "I'm putting/setting a solid roundish object [in some] elevated [location]". – ishwar  (speak) 22:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks ! Bertrand Bellet (talk) 22:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

No problem. I forgot to mention that I dont know any of those other SRO abbreviations on wikipedia either! – ishwar  (speak) 22:26, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:Native American mythology

Hi Ish. Please see teh Category talk:Native American mythology name-change gauntlet I just threw down...smae name issue resolved elsewhere like Indian Wars vs Wars of the indigenous peoples of North America, but this one's still a bugbear; presumably the proposed new cat could contain the Native American mythology cat, though; that might be simpler than a name change across so many articles that would need to be recatted....Skookum1 (talk) 17:43, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Also Category:Native American legendary creatures has the same problem...Skookum1 (talk) 17:45, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

removing depreciated derogatory term

I live in Alaska, and have been talking with different Deg Hit'an people, and the general consensus is to NOT have the word listed as an alternative name, but only that when that name is specifically searched, then they would have the user informed of the peoples' desire not to use it. It's like saying we should write (also known by the derogatory name Nigger) on the page for African American. Please do not revert my edits again without good cause. -Quickmythril (talk) 21:21, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Let me also note that when the tribe became a Native Corporation, they had to pick an official name. Ken Chase chose Ingalik in sort of a sarcastic way, just to piss off the elders, which it did. It took some time and work, but they got the official name changed. Unfortunately, its use it still widespread, but is slowly being eradicated. Please understand this is an issue the Deg Hit'an feel strongly about. Really would you want to be called "the people of lice".

Hi. But, you cant just remove the name and pretend like it is not commonly used to refer to this ethnic group in scholarly published material (like encyclopedias, handbooks, and other reference works). Some looking for information on this group may very well use this term in a search query or someone looking through the language articles may be puzzled as to why this language is not mentioned in article (since they dont know that Ingalik = Deg Hit'an). What should be done rather than removing the name is to keep the term and note its offensive nature in the relevant articles (emphasizing how strongly the tribe feels about it). The difference between nigger and Ingalik is that nigger is not used to refer to black people in scholarly published material. The only function of nigger as used by non-blacks is to insult — it doesnt have any scholarly use. – ishwar  (speak) 23:45, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand that it has a use in published materials. I am simply trying to get that to stop from happening further. I have created the article Ingalik which explains a bit about the term, and gives enough information that the reader can navigate to the proper article. I have also redirected the three alternative Athabascan dialect names i removed to Ingalik in case someone does search them. I tried to make a compromise of our edits, noting the usage but removing it as an official alternate name. More feedback is welcomed. Thanks. -Quickmythril (talk) 08:16, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for butting in but I also noticed your attempt at eradicating the term Ingalik from wikipedia. You should read guideline on naming conflicts which very specifically states that "Wikipedia should describe nor prescribe". In other words wikipedia is not the place to change what nomenclature is acceptable - here we simply describe which nomenclature is used. However the naming policy states that there are two criteria for naming one is standard English usage and the other is selfidentification. If you want to change the nomenclature you should do so by showing that "Deg Hit'an" is becoming the more accepted English usage AND that it is the preferred selfidentifying term of the ethnic group. Notice that currently the article on the Eskimo peoples is called exactly that "Eskimo", although that is also deprecated as a selfidentifier by the people themselves, and although it also comes from an earlier derogative used by another ethnic group (the Algonkin). ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 08:47, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I dont mind "butting in". Perhaps, a strict interpretation of Wikipedia:Naming conflict would led to having the primary articles under Ingalik because that is probably the most common name. But, there is precedent for using Deg Hit'an on the Alaska Native Language Center site and elsewhere.

Quickmythril, I also dont have any problem with social change. However, the fact that this name is commonly used would put Wikipedia at odds with other encyclopedias if we simply omit the name from our pages (e.g. Athabascan languages). Another reason for listing as many names as possible for American peoples is because of the problem of synonymy. Many groups have been known by several different names and sometimes the same name was used to refer to different peoples. All of this makes interpreting historical documents problemmatic (if not impossible). So, it is beneficial to researchers to have information on all the names used to refer an ethnic group. And we find these issues with the Deg Hit'an and neighboring peoples (e.g. the name Ingalik was used to refer to the non-Deg Hit'an Holikachuk as well).

What I suggest is keeping the term but with a disclaimer as to its pejorative status. I think that it will have the same effect (discouraging usage of the name) but without loss of information. Other people do similar things when commonly used names are insulting. – ishwar  (speak) 22:05, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Vietnamese

I don't want to butt heads with you at Vietnamese phonology and it seems like we're subtly undoing some things the other has done. The most striking example is that you use "orthographic X" to refer to phones while I prefer to use the IPA. It seems like most of the article uses IPA and I'm not a big fan of using orthography when talking about phonology unless necessary. Though I'm more understanding when it comes to Vietnamese vowels, we don't need to do that with consonants--maybe sometimes using both as in "syllable-final ch" ({[c])--since the IPA transcription of the consonants is less at variance than with the vowels.

Other stuff seems minor such as "the analysis of syllable-final...has had different analyses" vs "the phenomenon of syllable-final...has had different analyses" (I would think that the analysis itself wouldn't have analyses). I also noticed that you seem to be representing orthographic a as /a/ which is fine, but be sure that Wikipedia is consistent. The table near the end still has orthographic a as ɐː. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

hi.

i have some concerns with the way it's wording now. Mostly because i added to the general language article but then cut & pasted to the phono page. I think I want to reword it a bit. I'm not so anti-orthography as you because the orthography does indicate the phonological contrasts (although if you choose the velar allophone analysis then the orthography represents it in a complicated way). Many Vietnamese (and also other Vietic languages) articles use orthography to represent surface or abstract phonetic/phonological segments. So, it's very common to do so in the literature (just browse through the Mon-Khmer Studies journal and have a look — it's fun & online, that's what I'm wasting my time doing these past few weeks...).

I dont like phenomenon but it needs to reworded.

I want to redo the table. And maybe add more info to it (a grad student is doing some perceptual research at University of Pennsylvania). – ishwar  (speak) 03:14, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the orthography does a pretty good job of indicating phonological contrasts and, with the palatal stops even an aspect of phonetic representation, but IPA works pretty well too. Orthography makes more sense when there is considerable enough (a subjective measure, I know) dialectal variation or scholarly disagreement to make it so that the IPA would be as neutral as we'd like. For the phonetics of the palatal stops we have neither, correct?

Hmmm, how about "There have been several analyses for syllable-final..."?

I changed a few instances of [ɐ] to [a] since that seems to be the way the article is representing itself now. Of course, we can change this later. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:43, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there's no reason to omit the orthographic representation or the IPA transcription: so use both. Just to list points in favor of retaining the orthogo-graphs:

• analyses change, but the orthography doesnt
• used in Viet ling literature (in English & Vietnamese)
• connects different dialects: anh = [aɪŋ̟] in Hanoi #1 (= /aɲ/ or /ɛŋ/ or /ajŋ/); = [æŋ̟] Hanoi #2 (= /aɲ/)
• helps language learners (wikipedia friendly? it's a non-specialist site after all)

"There have been several analyses for syllable-final..." is fine, I'd prefer: "There have been several analyses for the phonological contrasts represented by syllable-final orthographic ch and nh." Why dont you scrap it & rewrite it? (I'm on a Kiowa-Tanoan kick right now, so I wont be messing with the Viet phono page for a while — but dont hold me to that...).

Yes, ɐ is a stupid symbol (shame on the IPA). I used it because some of the literature does use this symbol. But others dont. But, eventually, when the table in the notes is redone, the ɐ should be retained when that symbol is used by a source. (Incidentally, there is a little problem of interpreting Thompson's phonetic description of ă and a because he says slightly different things in two different articles. But, that remains to be added to the article.) – ishwar  (speak) 17:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Nahuatl getting into position for FA-drive

I have been working intensively on the Nahuatl article for the past few days - I am intent on taking it to FA status within the next few months. In that regard I'd appreciate all and any copyediting, peerreviwing, additions and suggestions to the article from knowledgeable and careful editors such as yourself. Thanks beforehand. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 15:35, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Vietnamese grammar

I think this section is sufficiently long to have its own article. I think we should split this section, similar to what you've done with Vietnamese phonology, and just leave a summary in the main article. Thanks for your work. DHN (talk) 19:56, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

hi.

ok, splitting. – ishwar  (speak) 03:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

rongorongo

Hi Ish,

I was wondering if you could keep a long-term eye on rongorongo. Not for any active work necessarily, more for protection when I'm not around. It's finally starting to become a credible article, but there are a few people who occasionally insist in making it incoherent. There's a teacher who's made a "semantic" interpretation, which seems to be nonsense even in French and Spanish, with the additional problem that her student (?) who adds the stuff doesn't know enough English to write comprehensibly. The main person working on it now has published in the field, which raises concerns of bias (see the talk page if you want about some of my concerns and his replies), but it's shaping up pretty well, and it's not like he's claiming to have cracked the code or anything.

Ah, Dinah Washington. Haven't listened to her for a while! kwami (talk) 06:48, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm hardly qualified to evaluate this article. I havent read anything about it.

But, ok. Seems like Guy is getting tired of editing this page. – ishwar  (speak) 21:41, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

It's more a matter of protecting against passionate POV edits, which are easily recognizable by the fact that they are completely incoherent. If you don't feel comfortable with that, I undenstand, and I'll be keeping an eye on it for the time being. It just seems that every time I leave wikipedia, I come back to find that article garbled again. kwami (talk) 22:11, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

ok. – ishwar  (speak) 23:30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

tám = few?

I've never seen that used in Vietnamese. Tám always means "eight". Which of your sources use that example? DHN (talk) 02:55, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi.

You are right. That is my transposition error. I should use a ruler when I look for examples.

As always, thank you for fixing my typos and updating the material. Who knows when I would have noticed these things?

– ishwar  (speak) 03:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)